Pauaho
by Fifilla
Summary: "Good morning partner. Gonna be late. See you at the office." Who would have thought that a simple text message would lead to gunshots at the office, a frantic search in the wild and a desperate fight for survival?
1. Chapter 1

**Pauaho**

**Notes:  
**1) pauaho = out of breath, panting, discouraged, despairing, weary, exhausted  
2) Fair warning: I love whump and I really love cliffhangers… just saying ;-) Better be prepared!  
3) English is not my native language, so please forgive me my mistakes.

**Disclaimer:  
**Unfortunately I don't own anything of Hawaii Five-0, it all belongs to CBS. But I wouldn't mind at all sharing my couch with the Five-0 team – feel free to come around whenever you like.

**Thanks:  
****JazzieG**, thank you so much for betaing, MAHALO, VIELEN DANK! Don't know what I'd do without you! :-)

This story is for you, **Kilema** - I really enjoy our e-mail conversations and I can't wait until we finally meet in person. That's gonna be so much fun :-)

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**Chapter 1:**

Humming cheerfully to himself, Steve killed the engine of his dark blue Silverado and swiftly opened the driver's door. A short glance at his watch told him that the trip from his house to the parking lot at the beginning of the Wa`ahila Ridge Trail had not even taken twenty minutes, which was hardly surprising at this time of the day. Or at that 'insanely early hour of the day' as Danny would probably call six o'clock in the morning. Shaking his head slightly, Steve grinned when he clearly heard his partner's voice in his mind, ranting about the fact that Steve considered it fun to voluntarily get up that early to go for a run.

The last three weeks had been extremely busy for Five-0 and the more stressful their cases had become the more Steve longed for something calm and quiet around him. The lush vegetation of the rainforest helped him to calm his churning thoughts immensely and that was why he'd chosen to come out here morning after morning during the last few days.

The air was still pretty humid after the heavy rainstorm the previous night, everything around was covered in dew that glistened in the first rays of dawn. Taking a deep breath of the clear cool morning breeze, Steve bent down to tie his shoelaces before he made sure that his cell phone and car key were safely stowed away in the pocket of his gray shorts. To be honest it didn't make a lot of sense to take the phone with him because out on the trail cell coverage was almost non-existent but somehow he felt naked without it.

Steve took in his surroundings while he started to stretch his muscles, warming up for his daily morning run. There was only one other car at the parking lot, a light blue Chevrolet Cruze, the same model that Kono drove, probably belonging to another jogger or some hikers who wanted to enjoy the pristine early morning atmosphere despite the fact that the trail was only half accessible at the moment. About two weeks ago there had been a large mudslide halfway down the path, making it impossible to reach one of the most famous overlooks of the trail. Even if the trail hadn't been totally closed to the public, the fact that it was no longer possible to reach said overlook or to hike the complete route had put a lot of the tourists who usually crowded the trail off, and it was exactly that lack of people that was another reason for Steve to come out here more often lately.

After rolling his shoulders and flexing his legs one last time Steve took another deep breath, ducked beneath the gate that indicated that the trail wasn't completely accessible and jogged off, his troubled mind calming down more and more with each step he took.

McGarrett let his mind wander while he carefully watched his steps, especially on the parts of the trail that weren't covered by trees and had been more exposed to the night rain. Mud was splashing on his bare legs when he crossed some especially wet spots but Steve didn't care. He briefly wondered why there weren't any other footprints but he soon abandoned that thought, maybe the owner of the light blue Chevy hadn't come this way or he plainly and simply had avoided all the muddy spots on the path.

At the beginning the only sounds he could hear over the chirping of the birds and the soft rustling of the leaves were his own breathing and the low impact of his sneakers on the moist brown soil. It was about ten or fifteen minutes later when another sound suddenly reached his ears. Steve slowed his steps down until he finally came to a halt. What sounded like the soft whimpering of a woman and now and then a faint cry filled the air.

Turning his head left and right, Steve tried to make out the source of the sound. Cautiously stepping through some dense bushes to the left of the trail, he cocked his head a little bit to one side and narrowed his eyes.

There it was again, now he was sure that he had definitely heard a woman crying.

"Hello?" McGarrett shouted, his voice echoing loud and clear under the trees that swayed slightly in the gentle morning breeze.

"Hello? Is somebody there? Do you need help?" he asked loudly, swiftly walking around a group of head-high red-leaved bushes toward the source of the crying.

"Over here," a faint voice finally replied hesitantly and only seconds later a woman stumbled right into Steve's path. She was about fifty-five years old, almost a head smaller than Steve, lean and wiry in stature, a black and red backpack slung over her shoulders. Her auburn hair which was laced with silver-gray strands curled around her tear-streaked face as she threw him a desperate look out of bright green eyes.

The woman looked vaguely familiar but before Steve could dwell on that thought she grabbed his right arm as she tried to gulp back her sobs. "Oh God… finally… please, I need help… my nephew…" she stammered hoarsely, pointing a shaky hand towards a small clearing about sixty feet away.

"It's okay, I'm here now. I'll help you," Steve said quietly, trying to soothe the agitated woman. "But first you have to calm down a bit, okay?" Watching her taking a few deep breaths he fished his cell phone out of his pocket but after a short glance at the display he quickly stowed it away – as he'd already expected there was absolutely no signal that deep in the forest. "I'm Commander McGarrett, I'm with Five-0," he said with a friendly smile, giving her an encouraging nod. "What's your name?"

"Claire," she whispered, her voice slightly trembling. "My name is Claire."

"Alright Claire," McGarrett said gently. "Now tell me what's happened to your nephew."

The woman swallowed, opening and closing her mouth a few times before she was able to answer Steve's question. "My nephew… Brian… he's ten…" she started, nervously intertwining her fingers as her gaze darted from Steve to the clearing and back. "Suddenly there was a hole in the ground and Brian… he fell," she explained, her voice trembling with panic. "He fell and then he didn't answer and I couldn't reach him… oh God… he didn't answer." Tears were streaming down her pale face and Claire briefly pressed her palms against her eyes.

"Hey, it's alright, shhh," Steve tried to calm her, placing his hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently.

"Claire, do you have a cell phone with you?" he asked quietly. Letting his hand reassuringly rest on her shoulder he waited for her affirmative nod. "Okay Claire, listen," Steve finally explained. "I need you to tell me where exactly Brian fell and then I want you to try calling for help. I know that cell coverage is pretty slim out here, but just walk around a bit and try different locations, okay?"

Looking into her teary green eyes he once more had the feeling that she somehow looked familiar but Steve quickly shoved the thought to the back of his mind. Later would be enough time to think about it, now his first and foremost task was to rescue a child. His heart briefly constricted in sympathy when he thought about the fact that the missing little boy was exactly Grace's age.

"Okay," Claire whispered with a shaky nod of her head. "It's that direction, the hole is in the middle of the clearing, you can't miss it," she explained, pointing along a small muddy path between the trees. Her voice was a bit stronger than before, she seemed to have gathered some strength now that she was no longer alone in her desperate situation.

"I'll come with you," Claire added, locking eyes with McGarrett. "I tried earlier to use the phone and I got a signal briefly at the clearing but it was too weak to make a call. Perhaps it'll work this time."

"Okay," Steve agreed as he turned around, heading toward the place she'd showed him as fast as the narrow slippery path allowed.

"What were you doing out here this early in the morning?" he asked curiously without bothering to look back. Somewhere behind him he heard Claire rummaging through her backpack, probably searching for her cell phone.

"Recording birdcalls for a school project," she answered, maybe a little bit too swiftly. The tone of her voice had somehow changed and something about that new tone made the hair on the back of Steve's neck stand on end.

He had only the blink of an eye of warning when something heavy connected with the back of his head.

Before Steve could react he found himself stumbling forward, crashing sluggishly down on his hands and knees with a pained groan, a paralyzing pain running from the back of his neck all the way down his spine. His arms and legs numb and tingling, McGarrett blinked feverishly to clear his clouded view.

Struggling back to his feet he turned his head to find out what had hit him but the last thing he saw before his world descended into darkness was a large piece of metal rushing toward his left temple.

**(tbc)**

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Okay, honestly? This cliffhanger isn't my fault... **sherry57** said I should end this chapter right here, so technically you have to blame her ;-)  
Next chapter in a few days...**  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Wow! Thank you so much for all the reviews, favorites and alerts, I'm totally blown away by your responses! You're amazing!

Just a short note:  
Don't worry, the story is finished :-) and there will be regular updates, probably twice a week.

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**Chapter 2:**

Staring down at the prone form of Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, Claire stood there silently for almost a full minute, allowing all the grief and hate in her heart to seep to the surface before she finally heaved a deep sigh and carelessly wiped the dried tears from her face.

Bending down she opened her backpack and pulled out two pieces of thin red rope. Briefly pressing her fingers against Steve's neck the woman nodded sharply when she found a strong pulse for she had no intention of killing her victim right now. No, she had other plans for the man in front of her; she was intent on making him suffer the same way she had suffered all those past years.

Completely ignoring the heavily bleeding wounds on Steve's left temple and on the back of his head she took one of the ropes and wrapped it tightly around his ankles. Then, with a complete lack of gentleness, she rolled Steve's limp body onto his stomach, tying his hands up behind his back.

Clearly satisfied with her work she quickly searched Steve's pockets, stowing away his car key as well as his cell phone in her backpack before she slung the bag over her shoulders.

Taking a deep breath Claire grabbed Steve's bound feet and started to drag him along the small path. It was a hard and arduous task to move the motionless body, even more so because Claire's shoes sank deeply into the mud with every step she made, but the woman was determined to reach her goal. Slowly walking backwards she breathed heavily from the exertion and after about fifteen minutes she had finally reached the small clearing she had been heading for.

Wiping the sweat from her face Claire knelt down, letting her hand travel through some loose brown soil directly in front of her until she'd dug out a metal plate. Curling her fingers around the edge of the plate she pulled forcefully and the plate turned out to be the lid of a buried metal box of about three by three by five feet.

Pensively staring into the empty box a small sad smile played around her lips but it quickly disappeared when she heard Steve breathe out a low moan. Turning her attention back to the unconscious man by her side she noticed a faint movement behind the still closed eyes.

Losing no time she jumped to her feet, pushing and pulling forcefully until Steve's body ungracefully toppled into the narrow box, not caring that he landed uncomfortably on his bound wrists. The wound on his left temple was still bleeding sluggishly, painting a gruesome mask on McGarrett's face before the blood ran down his neck and into his dark blue top. Large parts of his body, of his clothes and even of his hair were covered in a more or less thick layer of mud.

After a few moments of silence there was another pained moan and Claire could see McGarrett's eyelids hesitantly fluttering open. Unfortunately the woman was familiar enough with Navy SEALs to know that even tied up and barely conscious, Steve could be dangerous to her. If she wasn't careful her entire plan could be capsized in the blink of an eye.

Quickly rummaging through her backpack, Claire made a small step back out of Steve's reach. Right now the man didn't seem to be capable of trying anything – obviously the task of opening his eyes and focusing on his surroundings was an effort almost too tremendous – but better safe than sorry.

"Stay where you are," Claire said coldly when Steve's bleary gaze finally settled on her. Pulling a small black and yellow taser out of her backpack she crouched down near his head, prepared to do everything necessary to keep the man under control.

"Who… who are you?" Steve asked hoarsely, swallowing laboriously and blinking slowly as he stared at her in confusion and anger. "What do you want from me?"

His head was spinning and he had trouble concentrating on anything other than the agonizing pain that spread from his left temple through his entire skull. Calling his vision blurry would have been the understatement of the century and if anyone had asked, Steve would have sworn that there were at least two identical women talking to him. Only belatedly he noticed that his hands and feet were bound and that he had been squashed into a box too small for him to stretch out completely.

Struggling weakly against his bonds Steve tried to get his feet under him but the restricted space inside the box and the heavy dizziness he was experiencing made it almost impossible to move his body at all.

"Don't move!" Claire exclaimed forcefully when she noticed his intentions, her shrill voice sending spikes of pain through Steve's consciousness.

"What do you want?" he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut in a vain attempt to block out the pain and to clear his vision. The dizziness retreated a tiny bit but now he was slowly becoming aware of all the other parts of his body that hurt apart from the agonizing headache. Having his hands tied up behind his back made his shoulders scream from the unusual angle they were forced into and the added pressure of lying on his hands didn't help at all to soften that pain. Trying to wiggle his fingers to check the bonds Steve gritted his teeth when a sharp pain rushed through his arm and feeling the sickening crunch in his right wrist he instinctively knew that at least one of the bones was broken. His ankles were throbbing mercilessly in sync with his heartbeat and when he looked down he could see bloody scratches under the mud that covered his bare legs.

"What do you want?" Steve repeated, clearing his throat as he let his unsteady gaze travel over the woman next to him, trying to find a way out of his misery.

Closing her eyes for a short moment, Claire took a deep breath before the expression on her face became cold and hard. "I want you to suffer the same way I did," she whispered slowly, her bright green eyes burning in her pale face. "I want you to experience the same pain I have been in constantly over the last ten years."

"But I don't know you…" Steve uttered, blinking in confusion because the pounding headache made it really difficult to concentrate on her words. Even if the woman looked vaguely familiar to him he had no idea who she was or what she was talking about. The only explanation he could come up with was that she was obviously mentally ill, a fact that made her probably even more dangerous. Tensing his muscles, McGarrett gathered all of his remaining strength, ready to put everything he had into one desperate move to overcome her.

"No, but you knew my son," Claire cried out, her voice half angry and half sad. Noticing Steve's efforts to get up her face contorted with hate and in one swift move she raised her right hand that held the small taser.

Steve tried to shrink back when she approached him but his body just didn't obey his wishes and even if it had, the metal wall that pressed against his back would probably have blocked any movement.

Gritting his teeth McGarrett menacingly growled deep in his throat when Claire pressed the device against his neck but his resistance was futile. For a short moment he was sure he saw a hint of regret flickering in her elusively familiar green eyes but then she blinked once and the next thing he felt was an all-consuming, white-hot pain. He held his breath when all the muscles in his body involuntarily cramped but he couldn't prevent the agonizing groan when the back of his head connected painfully with the sharp edge of the metal box he was in. A gray veil slowly clouded his already restricted vision, seconds turned into hours when his muscles started to tremble from the ongoing strain.

And then all the pain was gone from one moment to the next when Claire finally removed the taser and his body relaxed exhaustedly. His breaths came in fast, shallow gasps and Steve blinked feverishly against the darkness that threatened to take control over his mind. But obviously he had hit his head harder than he wished for because his eyelids slowly closed on their own and everything around him gradually faded away into nothingness.

He never saw or heard the metal lid close over him with a deafening bang that reverberated ominously through the deserted forest.

* * *

Throwing one last hateful glance at Commander McGarrett's unconscious form, Claire forcefully slammed shut the lid before she started to meticulously seal the metal box. After having checked that everything was tightly locked she turned around and without looking back she grabbed her backpack and left. She didn't even bother to cover the box with soil, confident that the clearing was far enough away from the regular path for any hiker to find it.

It was barely fifteen minutes later when Claire reached the parking lot, relieved to find no other cars beside her own compact car and Steve's dark blue Silverado. Pulling the stolen car key out of her backpack she opened the door and climbed into the passenger's seat of the pickup truck, not caring at all that her shoes left behind a huge trail of mud inside the vehicle. Forcing open the glove compartment a satisfied smile crept across her lips when, as expected, she found McGarrett's SIG-Sauer P226.

Quickly stowing away the weapon she let her gaze travel across the empty parking lot, making sure that there were still no other people around. Throwing a look at her watch Claire smiled contentedly when she noticed the time. It was five minutes past seven; everything went almost exactly according to plan.

The smile on her face grew even bigger when she took Steve's cell phone and swiftly started to type a message. After having hit the send button the woman pocketed the phone and slowly exited the truck, carefully locking the door behind her.

Taking a deep breath she slowly headed toward her own car, tiredly dropping down into the driver's seat. There was plenty of time before she needed to put the next step of her plan into action and Claire allowed herself a few minutes of rest.

A single tear slipped down her cheek when she thought of everything she had lost and she could feel hate and grief struggling for supremacy in her heart. Choking back a sob, she angrily wiped away the tears and her green eyes sparkled dangerously when she started the engine and left the parking lot.

**(tbc)**

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Sorry for another short chapter - I promise the following chapters will be longer.  
Have a great time, see you in a few days...**  
**


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you so much for all your nice reviews - I really appreciate every single one of them :-)

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**Chapter 3:**

Danny groaned in annoyance when he was woken up by the cheerful beeping of his cell phone. Opening his eyes to mere slits he threw a tired look at the alarm clock on his nightstand, immediately squeezing shut his eyes when he noticed the time. It was only a few minutes past seven and he knew for sure that only one single person would torture him with text messages at this insanely early time of the day.

"I hope for your sake that it's something really important or otherwise I'm gonna kill you," Danny murmured into his pillow. "I swear I'm gonna kill you, Steven."

After weeks of stress and a hectic schedule, today was the first day without a case for Five-0 and Danny firmly intended to stay in bed as long as possible. Battling with himself for a long moment, Danny's sense of duty finally gained the upper hand and heaving a deep sigh, he stretched out his right hand, blindly fumbling around for his phone.

Without getting up he tiredly blinked at the display, groaning again when he read the message.

_Good morning partner. Going for an extended run today. Gonna be late. See you at the office. Steven_

Closing his eyes, Williams slightly shook his head. Only his crazy, badass Navy SEAL partner would consider it fun to choose an early morning run over the possibility to sleep in. Sighing again, Danny wondered if it was worth the effort to type an answer but figured that since he was awake he might as well send back a little text message.

_Don't think you can dump all your paperwork on me, Steven! I expect your lazy ass in the office no later than ten!_

Not really expecting an answer, Danny waited a few moments before he threw the cell phone unceremoniously back onto the nightstand. Turning around he snuggled deeper into his pillow and closed his eyes, a content smile spreading across his face. When Steve would be late, he didn't have to feel guilty if he also started the day a little bit later than usual. And after all, why not? He was sure that the paperwork certainly wouldn't run away.

* * *

Swallowing convulsively against the overwhelming desire to throw up Steve tried to take some deep breaths to keep the nausea at bay. He didn't know if his eyes were open or closed, all he knew was that it was pitch-dark around him and that he hurt literally from head to toe. The worst thing was the almost unbearable headache, and suddenly he was grateful for the darkness he was in because he was sure that every tiny ray of light in his eyes would certainly kill him.

He had regained consciousness a few minutes ago and after what seemed to be an eternity of concentrating only on deeply breathing in and out Steve finally felt the nausea and headache retreat enough to allow him to at least assess his situation.

His hands and feet were still tied up; he could feel the rough rope cutting painfully in his bare wrists and ankles. Most of the mud that covered large parts of his body and clothes had dried, leaving behind an uncomfortable matted feeling. The whole right side of his body felt numb, probably from lying in the same position for too long. Trying to stretch his bent knees, Steve's feet quickly came in contact with something solid and when he fumbled around as far as his bound limbs allowed his movements were rapidly constricted by the walls around him and he soon detected that he was trapped inside a rather small metal box.

A wave of panic involuntarily washed over him, but remembering his SEAL training, where he'd had to endure a lot of more terrifying situations, he willed his mind and body to relax and soon the incipient panic decreased back into nothingness. He needed to stay calm and focused if he wanted to find a way out of this mess.

Awkwardly turning around and moving his body into a half kneeling position McGarrett squeezed his eyes shut when the throbbing in his head briefly peaked to an unbearable level. Puffing out a few shaky breaths he waited for the pain to subside then he bowed his head forward and pressed his shoulders and upper back against the closed lid, confident that he'd be able to open it up if he only pushed hard enough.

But after several minutes the lid hadn't budged not even a tiny bit and panting from the exertion Steve finally abandoned his attempts, slouching back down onto the metal surface as he tried to calm his ragged breathing. Deeply and slowly inhaling and exhaling the stuffy air, Steve started to catalog his injuries.

The headache and nausea were clear signs of a concussion, but there was nothing he could do about this right now. The left side of his face and his neck felt sticky from all the dried blood but Steve was pretty sure that the wounds on his temple and on the back of his head at least had stopped bleeding. His shoulders hurt like hell from the constant contorted position they were forced in and every movement of his right hand sent a sharp pain through his injured wrist. The only advantage of the tight bonds was the stabilizing effect they had on the most likely broken bones.

Shoving all the pain to the back of his mind Steve tried to move his body into a position where he could handle the bonds around his ankles, a task that was not that easy considering the fact that he was lying in a box that was much too small for his tall frame. But after much wiggling and winding accompanied by as many curses as pained groans, Steve finally reached his goal and immediately started to patiently work on the rope around his ankles.

He was able to undo the knots in a surprisingly short amount of time and now knowing about the used technique he shifted his concentration to the bonds around his wrists, absolutely determined to get rid of them. However, that task was a great deal more difficult, not only because of his broken wrist and the fact that the rope was matted with mud but first and foremost because of the awkward angle he had to twist his hands and fingers in.

Steve didn't know how much time had passed but finally the rope dropped from his sore wrists and he closed his eyes in exhaustion and gratitude. Breathing heavily he leaned his head against the wall, carefully rolling his shoulders to ease the pain. He refused to do the same with his wrists because now that the rope was gone the slightest of movements sent an almost unbearable wave of pain through his right wrist.

Pondering for a moment on the best way to immobilize the joint he finally started to take off his top, a task that took him quite a few minutes. But despite the restricted space he managed to twist his body and his arms enough to succeed and he finally held the garment in his hands, panting laboriously from exertion and pain.

For a long moment Steve just lay in the dark, gathering his strength for the painful task of splinting his broken wrist. Grabbing his right hand with his left one, he pulled carefully, groaning loudly when he felt and heard the broken bones scratching at each other. With gritted teeth he held his breath, his whole body trembling from the agonizing pain, as tears were running down his face but he didn't stop until he was convinced that the joint was halfway straightened. Puffing out his breath in strangled sobs Steve quickly wrapped his top tightly around his wrist and tucked the ends inside the makeshift bandage before he leaned his head back against the metal wall and tried to fight the waves of agony that racked his body.

After a while the pain slowly retreated to a more bearable level and Steve noticed in satisfaction that he could move the fingers of his right hand almost pain-free. Raising his uninjured hand he gingerly touched the wound on his left temple, hissing silently when he felt the amount of dried blood on his face but at least he found no fresh blood.

Now that his hands were no longer bound and the broken wrist was satisfactorily immobilized, he quickly searched through his pockets but unsurprisingly his cell phone was gone. The only thing he still had apart from his shoes and clothes was his wristwatch. Well, at least he knew how late it was, whatever benefit he would draw from that knowledge, and maybe the illuminated display could help him to find a way out of his prison.

Pressing his right thumb against the small button the display of his watch flared to life, causing Steve to groan in pain when even that faint light sent a new spike of pain through his skull. Squinting, he waited a moment before he opened his eyes to mere slits, blinking rapidly to clear his blurred vision. The small display wavered in and out of focus and Steve had to close his eyes again when a wave of dizziness crashed over him. After a few deep breaths he renewed his attempts to read the time, breathing out a startled gasp when he finally managed to make out the numbers.

McGarrett couldn't believe that it was already three minutes past eight, which meant he had been lying in this fucking box for more than one hour by now. Fighting back the sudden unexpected yawn that built up in his chest he took another deep breath as he pondered his next steps.

Calling for help was probably more than useless given the fact that not many people hiked here at the moment because of the half-closed trail, and if he was still somewhere near the point where he'd met that crazy woman – whoever she was – he was much too far away from any path that there would be hope of being heard. Nevertheless Steve banged his left fist against the metal lid and shouted loudly, "Hello? Is there anybody out there? Hello?"

A few minutes later he stopped his ineffective tries when he realized that he'd achieve nothing aside from another increase of his headache and some shortness of breath. He could only hope that Danny, Chin and Kono already missed him by now, but to be honest he wasn't sure if they would be able to find him here in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no hints of where he'd gone or what had happened to him.

Heaving a deep sigh Steve turned his aching body a little bit and started to meticulously examine every inch of his metal prison. He let his fingers slowly travel along the walls, across the floor and the lid, especially concentrating on the edges between the different parts, every now and then pressing the small button on his watch, using the faint light to scrutinize every little unevenness in the material but his vision was still hazy and every time he illuminated the display a new wave of dizziness and nausea rolled through his body.

While systematically working his way across the box, McGarrett let his mind wander, racking his brain about the woman who was the cause of his current misery. He was pretty sure that he had never dealt with her before but there was something about her looks that struck a chord in him; those bright green eyes seemed to drill a hole directly into his mind and soul.

Stifling another yawn he remembered her comment about her son, but as much as he strained his concussed brain he couldn't think of anyone he knew. But to be honest, the pounding headache and the oppressive silence and darkness of his narrow prison made it difficult to concentrate on anything else other than the pain he was in, or to phrase it more simply – thinking plainly and simply just hurt right now.

Steve couldn't suppress a small chuckle when he once more clearly heard Danny's voice in his head, stating his opinion that he had always known that Steve's brain probably was too small for the task of thinking and that is was no wonder if his head hurt while trying it.

Without warning the chuckle suddenly turned into a full-blown coughing fit, causing Steve to twist his body to one side as far as the constricted space allowed. The coughing dissolved as quickly as it had come leaving behind a slight but uncomfortable pressure on his chest that made Steve draw in deeper breaths. He felt his heart rate pick up speed and as much as he tried to calm down his breathing his body just didn't obey his orders.

The feeling of not being able to properly catch his breath sent an icy shiver down his spine. Unconsciously pressing his forearms against the walls left and right of him, McGarrett stared wide-eyed into the darkness when his dazed mind finally registered what these scary new symptoms meant for his current situation.

It meant that he had not only been squeezed into a dark, narrow box, that he was dirty, concussed, injured and unable to call for help, that absolutely nobody knew where he was but that, to crown it all, said box was probably sealed completely and utterly airtight.

* * *

_This is Steve McGarrett. I'm not available at the moment, please leave a message._

Throwing a glance at the clock on the computer screen in front of him, Danny furrowed his brow as he ended the call and jumped to his feet, carelessly pushing his desk chair out of the way. Grabbing a handful of unworked files he shook his head, half angry and half amused about the fact that his partner still hadn't arrived at work and that he obviously didn't bother at all to answer his phone.

Grinning smugly he strolled out of his office, straightly marched into McGarrett's room and carefully put the papers onto the desk, stacking them up onto the other documents that already sat there. Danny, Chin and Kono had decided that for every ten minutes that Steve was late, he would have to take over some of their work and now, at almost nine o'clock, there was already an impressive pile of files and documents waiting at their boss's desk.

The smile on Danny's face grew even bigger when he looked up, noticing that Kono also headed for Steve's office, a mean grin on her lips and two or three sheets of paper in her right hand.

"Hey Kono, how you're getting along?" Williams asked when the young woman entered the office.

"I'm almost done with my paperwork," she replied with a tired little sigh as she placed the sheets in her hand onto McGarrett's desk before she turned around to lock eyes with her teammate. "Now I'm done," she giggled, the statement earning her a hearty laugh from Danny.

"Well done, rookie, I think there's not much more I'll be able to teach you," he said gleefully, giving her a high five. "How about a well-deserved coffee break?"

"Oh yeah, I'd like that," she agreed happily, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she led the way out of the office. "Black with two sugars, please," she added with a wink, gently shoving Danny toward the coffee machine.

"Don't overdo it, Kalakaua," Danny growled, wagging his finger in her face but the huge smile on his lips betrayed the tone of his voice and he dutifully and gentlemanly walked away to obey her wishes.

When Danny returned only a few moments later, balancing three cups of coffee in his hands, he found Kono and Chin standing in front of the big computer table, animatedly chatting about one of their elderly aunts who apparently had devoted her life to find an appropriate husband for Kono, a fact that Chin found highly amusing while Kono herself was outright annoyed.

"Hey Danny," Chin interrupted their conversation, much to Kono's relief, nodding a thank-you toward his teammate when he accepted the cup Danny was handing him. "Is Steve still not here?"

Sipping at his own coffee, Danny slightly shook his head, a hint of concern coloring his features. "Nope," he said uncharacteristically clipped, fiddling nervously with the cup in his hands when a sudden wave of presentiment washed over him.

"You worried?" Kono interposed when she noticed Danny's behavior, exchanging a brief look with her cousin.

"Nah," Williams replied, once more shaking his head in denial. Taking a deep breath he shoved the small touch of concern to the back of his mind, furrowing his brow as he said pensively, "He probably just wants to duck all the paperwork."

After a short moment of silence a bright smirk crept across Danny's face when he put his cup down onto the computer table and waved his hands through the air. "But that plan already failed spectacularly," he gloated, referring to the huge pile of documents on McGarrett's desk. Rubbing his hands he said gleefully, "Let me just dump the last of my files on his table and then I'll try again to call that lazy partner of mine."

But before Danny could put his plan into action he heard a familiar sound behind him, the unmistakable creak of the big glass doors that lead into the office. Without looking toward the entrance, he exclaimed loudly, "Ah, it's about time, lazybones…"

Seeing the surprised look on Chin's and Kono's face, Danny interrupted himself and whirled around. "Oh sorry," he said when he finally noticed that it was not his partner who had entered the office but rather a lean, middle-aged woman who pressed a black and red backpack tightly against her chest. "I thought you'd be my lazy partner who thinks it's fun to leave all the boring paperwork for his colleagues." Waving his hand, he dismissed that thought as he remembered his manners and asked politely, "What can we do for you?"

The woman didn't answer immediately; she just stared silently at the three members of Five-0 for a long moment, causing Danny to exchange confused looks with his teammates.

"Ma'am?" Chin asked quietly. "Do you need help? Are you alright?"

Blinking slowly the woman let her gaze lazily travel over Chin and Kono before her bright green eyes settled down on Danny. "I want you to listen," she finally said lowly, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Uh, sure," Williams answered hesitantly, raising his eyebrows about her strange behavior. Throwing another confused look at Chin and Kono he briefly shrugged his shoulders before he pointed over his right shoulder, "Why don't we go in my office?"

"No," the woman answered firmly with a sharp shake of her head, taking everyone by surprise when she suddenly pulled a weapon out of her backpack in one swift move. Carelessly dropping the backpack onto the floor she raised the gun, pointing it directly at Danny's head before anyone could even think of going for their own weapons. "I just want you to listen," she repeated hoarsely, and the pure hate and anger in her eyes sent a cold shiver along Danny's spine.

"Okay, okay, no problem," Danny replied without hesitation, rapidly thinking about the best way to defuse the situation. Slightly raising his hands with palms upwards he suggested gently, "Why don't you put the gun down and we can talk like civilized people?"

"No," the woman repeated, her green eyes glistening when she barked out her next orders. "All of you, step back from the table and put your hands behind your head. I don't intend to hurt anyone; I just need you to listen."

"Okay, alright," Danny agreed, very slowly raising his hands behind his head, giving his teammates a little nod to follow his lead. How on earth this woman – whoever she was – had managed to enter their headquarters with a weapon in her bag and catch them off-guard was beyond his grasp. "I'm Detective Williams, this is Lieutenant Kelly and Officer Kalakaua," he introduced calmly, trying to ease the tense atmosphere a little bit. Keeping his eyes glued to the woman's face, Danny asked softly, "What's your name?"

Staring at Danny for a long moment, the woman cocked her head a little bit to the right as if she was considering his words. Her weapon still aimed at Danny's head she finally replied quietly, "It doesn't matter who you are or what my name is. I just want to tell you why he deserves to suffer…"

Her voice trailed off and the woman held Danny's gaze as if she expected him to give an answer.

"Uhm, I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about," Danny said hesitantly, his voice laced with confusion, not daring to look at his teammates to see if they knew what was going on. "Who exactly do you want to suffer?"

But as soon as he'd opened his mouth Williams had noticed the dull shadow that was slowly creeping into her eyes and as almost expected the strange woman didn't answer his question.

"I want him to suffer the same way I've suffered the last ten years," she explained flatly. "I want him to live in darkness the same way I've lived in darkness ever since. He shall know how it feels to hurt, to be crushed and suffocated by the darkness, unable to draw a single pain-free breath."

She briefly laughed out joylessly, the sound eerily flowing across the office.

"But my darkness was the darkness of the mind, it was the pain of my soul that suffocated me, my grief that didn't give me space to breathe or move or live. And even if his pain will be much more physical he will nevertheless learn what it feels like to spend the rest of his life in utter darkness, alone with nothing but his troubled thoughts and memories."

Her hand that held the weapon wavered a little bit when she breathed out a faint sigh but not enough that Danny, Chin or Kono dared to intervene. The ghost of a smile flashed over the woman's face and her green eyes suddenly glistened brightly again.

"But there will be one crucial difference," she said quietly into the silence of the room. "He will die slowly and painfully while I'll be released from my pain, my suffering will finally come to an end in the blink of an eye."

Blinking slowly, the woman swiftly raised her arm, pressed the barrel of the weapon against her right temple and without further hesitation she pulled the trigger.

**(tbc)**

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I warned you about cliffhangers, didn't I? ;-)**  
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	4. Chapter 4

Thank you so much for all your wonderul reviews, I'm really overwhelmed by the amount of feedback :-) I tried to answer all your comments and I truly hope that I haven't missed someone. Also many thanks to the anonymous reviewers, I appreciate your comments too. Thank you!

* * *

**Chapter 4:**

He was still covered in mud and blood, he was thirsty, he had to pee and he was sweating like a pig in the ever growing heat inside his prison box, but Steve was trained to ignore all these fundamental needs of his body. But what he was not able to ignore was the simple fact that his body demanded some proper air to breathe.

By now he was sure that the box was indeed sealed airtight, judging from the fact that he wasn't any longer able to control his breathing rate. The more he tried to slow down his breathing, the more his body screamed for oxygen and soon he found himself drawing in air in fast, deep breaths, unable to deny the needs of his body.

Not that it actually helped much, if anything his increased breathing rate made the whole situation even worse.

Steve knew that the biggest problem in his current situation was not the lack of oxygen but rather the increase of carbon dioxide in the air. With every single breath he exhaled, the amount of carbon dioxide inside the box increased until the concentration was high enough to affect his health and ultimately kill him.

Knowing that a carbon dioxide concentration of about eight percent in the breathing air led to death in thirty to sixty minutes, Steve made a rough estimate of the time he still had available, finally coming to the conclusion that initially there had been enough air for four or maybe five hours if he was lucky.

Pressing the button of his wristwatch, he quickly blinked away the bolt of pain that rushed through his head when the faint light stung his eyes. His vision was still blurry and every time he looked at his watch he needed more and more time to bring the display into focus but after closing and opening his eyes a few times he finally managed to read the numbers. It was almost nine o'clock which meant that probably more than half of his time had already passed.

Exhaustedly Steve tried to find a more comfortable position in his narrow prison, but that was an almost impossible task. Either he was able to stretch his legs, but then he had to bend his back and his head in an unnatural and painful angle, or he stretched his back and bent his knees, a position which soon led to cramps in his calves. Besides all this he tried to raise his head as much as possible, because of the simple fact that carbon dioxide was heavier than air and would therefore concentrate on the bottom of the box.

It was definitely not easy to find the best position and to top it all, every time he moved in the crushing darkness, Steve bumped either his broken wrist or any other part of his aching body against the wall which left him panting and cursing with pain.

He had twice more tried to pry open the lid of the box but it was to no avail. All he achieved from his exertion was another increase in the need for oxygen and that was something he definitely couldn't afford at the moment. If he wasn't able to free himself, he would need every tiny bit of air and every damn second he could get.

McGarrett could feel his heart beating in his chest a lot faster than usual as it tried to deliver the much needed oxygen to all his vital organs. The skin of his face was flushed but he couldn't tell if it was from the elevated blood pressure or from the fact that it was incredibly hot inside that stupid box.

The metal floor plate he was lying on was cool, almost a little bit too cold for his liking, but when he touched the lid of the box, it was so hot that Steve almost burned himself. From the bit he had seen before his crazy captor had tasered him and he'd lost consciousness for the second time, his metal prison had been buried deeply into the moist soil and was now obviously exposed to the mercilessly hot Hawaiian sunshine.

Wiping the sweat from his face with trembling fingers, Steve sucked in the stuffy air in greedy gulps – 'air hunger' really was the perfect description for this symptom in the early stage of a carbon dioxide poisoning.

But he hungered not only for air but first and foremost for his Ohana – or someone else, he really wasn't too picky at the moment – to find and rescue him.

"Danno, if I ever needed you, now would be the perfect time to show up," Steve whispered into the darkness, his labored breaths the only sound in his narrow, pitch-black prison. "I really need back-up, so please hurry up, brother."

* * *

"Whoa!"

Danny exclaimed with a start, feeling Kono wincing next to him when the single shot echoed loudly through Five-0 headquarters. The weapon slipped from now limp fingers, clattering onto the floor at the same moment as the lifeless body of the unknown woman dropped down, hitting the floor with a sickening sound.

Standing stock-still, Danny stared wide-eyed at the ugly pool of blood and other stuff he rather would not think about that slowly formed around the woman's head, blinking in bewilderment when he tried to process what he had just seen.

"What the hell is happening here?" he asked hesitantly, his voice hoarse and low as he tried to shake off the cloud of confusion that filled his mind.

Slowly following Chin and Kono who had already rushed to the woman's side, Williams pulled his cell phone out of his pocket as he looked at Chin who just crouched down, pressing his fingers against the woman's neck. "Do we need an ambulance?" he asked quietly even if he was pretty sure that the woman was beyond any help.

"No," Kelly replied after a moment of silence, sadly confirming the obvious. "She's dead."

Breathing out a shaky sigh, Danny ran his hands over his hair as he exchanged confused looks with his teammates. "I'll call HPD and Max and then let's find out who she was and what she was talking about," he suggested, already busy dialing a number on his cell phone. While he waited for the call to connect he watched each of his teammates slipping on a pair of black disposable gloves.

Chin started to carefully search the woman's pockets while Kono had a look into her black and red backpack. By the time Danny had finished the calls and had stowed away his cell phone, Chin stood up from his crouched position, a single key dangling from his gloved fingers.

"That's the only thing I found," Chin said, taking a closer look at the small black and silver item. "Chevrolet car key, nothing else."

"No ID?" Danny inquired, looking pensively at the key in Chin's hand.

"No," Chin confirmed with a slight shake of his head. "Maybe in her backpack or we'll find something in her car, provided that we find the car. Otherwise we just have to hope that her fingerprints will reveal her identity."

"Max is coming over as soon as possible, but I don't think he'll be able to tell us anything new. After all we know perfectly well what the cause of death is," Williams said dryly. "And HPD wanted to know if we're able to handle this alone because at the moment they are obviously short of staff because of some internal training activities that are scheduled for today."

Raising his eyebrows, Chin looked at the younger man in surprise, "Seriously? They won't send someone because of internal training activities?"

"That's what the nice lady on the phone told me," Danny replied, slightly shrugging his shoulders as he spread his hands in a wide gesture. Once more pulling the cell phone out of his pocket, he threw a look at the clock on the display as he said, frowning, "I'll call Steve – I think it's finally time that he stops his childish behavior and moves his ass into the office. After all he's the boss, he should be present when a lunatic woman strolls into our headquarters, aims a weapon at our heads and then kills herself after babbling strange things about…"

"Hey guys, I think you should see this," Kono interrupted him hesitantly as she slowly rose to her feet, throwing her teammates a worried look out of big dark eyes as she presented two items on her outstretched hand. "Do these things look familiar?" she whispered, clearly terrified, her gaze darting between Danny and her cousin.

Staring for a long moment at the car key and the black iPhone, Danny's eyes grew wide when realization finally hit him like a kick in the gut. "Is this…" he stammered, clearing his throat as he frantically hit the speed dial on his phone. "Don't tell me it's Steve's…" he begged quietly as he apprehensively stared at the device on Kono's palm as if it would jump at him at any moment.

"No, no, no, no, no," Danny exclaimed hoarsely a second later when the iPhone started to vibrate, threatening to drop from Kono's outstretched hand. Quickly closing her fingers around the phone, Kono breathed out a shaky sigh as she watched Danny who still stared numbly down at her hands.

"Damn!" she whispered, exactly expressing what anyone in the room was thinking. "What does that mean?"

"If this is Steve's phone, I think we can be pretty sure that this is his car key," Chin said, pointing at the key in Kono's other hand before he let his gaze slowly travel to the discharged weapon on the floor. "And that is probably his weapon." Looking up, he added grimly, "The only question remaining is, where is Steve?"

Staring blankly at the dead body on the floor, Danny shook his head over and over again until he finally took a deep shuddering breath. "Dammit Steven, what have you gotten yourself into this time?" he asked angrily, addressing no one in particular. Raising his gaze Danny looked first at Kono then at Chin, his eyes glazed over with worry for his partner, "What do we do now? Where on earth is Steve and how are we supposed to find him?"

"Perhaps we can find his car," Kono suggested excitedly. "Or maybe his cell phone will reveal something useful." She was literally bouncing on her feet, ready to jump into action at any moment.

Closing his fingers around the woman's car key in his hand, Chin looked at his two teammates, "Listen, if something has happened to Steve, it's important that we take it one step at a time, okay? We don't want to miss something important, so let's keep calm and focused." Waiting a short moment until he was sure that Kono and Danny caught his words, Chin turned around and headed toward the exit. "I'll search the parking lot, maybe I'll be able to find her car," he said over his shoulder. "I suggest you two start with the woman's ID. And then let's find out where Steve is and what she did to him."

* * *

It had been surprisingly easy for Chin to find the woman's car, the light blue Chevy Cruze had been parked directly next to Danny's silver Camaro in front of the Palace. The car was neat and tidy and except for a small brown purse on the passenger's seat, Chin literally found nothing.

But at least the purse contained the woman's driver's license and not even ten minutes later Chin returned to the office, a satisfied little grin playing around his lips. "Hey, I got an ID," he said contentedly, waving the driver's license in his hand. "The woman's name is…"

"Claire Sacotte," Kono interrupted him, a grim smile on her lips as she nodded toward the screens on the wall. "Her fingerprints were in the database because she had been arrested about seven years ago for DUI."

Slightly shrugging in defeat, Chin approached his teammates as he looked curiously at the displayed information. "What else do we know about her?"

"Unfortunately not much," Danny sighed in frustration, leaving it to Kono to explain their findings.

"Claire Sacotte, 56, single mother to one son who died a few years ago. She grew up in Baltimore and apparently never moved away from there. Apart from the information on her arrest there's only one other point of interest," Kono said, scrolling through the data until she found what she was looking for. "She had been in psychiatric treatment from 2003 to 2011..."

"Psychiatric treatment? I wonder why," Danny interrupted her sarcastically, his gaze flickering to the dead body on the floor. He just hoped that Max would show up soon, it was really more than awkward to do one's work under the present circumstances.

"Anything else?" Chin asked his cousin, completely ignoring Danny's interjection. "What about her bank account and credit card? Any unusual transactions? When did she come to Hawaii? Had she been here before? Any connections to Steve?"

"No," Kono replied as her fingers danced over the display of the big computer table. "As far as I can tell she had never been here before. She flew in about three weeks ago with Hawaiian Airlines; her return flight is scheduled for tomorrow. However I cannot find any information about her stay on the island, no hotel bookings, no rental car, absolutely no credit card use since she came to Oahu."

"That's unusual," Chin murmured pensively, skimming again through the information on the screen.

"So we have absolutely no idea what she's done during the last three weeks or what her connections to McGarrett are?" Danny asked, running his hands over his hair in utter frustration. "How are we supposed to find out what she was talking about? She said something like 'I want him to suffer', right? I mean, let's presume she was talking about Steve – and given the fact that she had not only his keys and his phone but also his damned weapon and that Steve still hasn't shown up yet – I'd say the chance that she was indeed talking about our fearless leader is pretty high."

"Why don't we try to reconstruct what she said," Kono asked, already starting to type snippets of text into the computer. "I think I can remember most of her words… come on guys, help me fill in the missing blanks. Is there anything else you can think of?"

After five minutes of scribbling and changing the word order several times, Kono was pretty sure that they had managed to write down everything exactly as Claire Sacotte had said when she'd come into Five-0 headquarters not even half an hour ago.

Reading the text out aloud a few times, Kono's voice finally trailed off as she looked at her teammates, her dark eyes glistening with worry and concern.

"Okay," Danny puffed out, pensively nibbling on his lower lip. "_I want him to live in darkness_… _crushed and suffocated by the darkness_… the first thing that comes to my mind is that this sounds a lot like a description of someone who is trapped inside a narrow, dark room?"

"You're right," Chin agreed as he slowly nodded his head, his eyes glued to the words on the screen. "I just hope that we don't have to take the word '_suffocate_' literally."

"And I absolutely don't like the implication of the last sentence," Danny added, fidgeting nervously with the cup of long gone cold coffee in front of him. "_He will die slowly and painfully_ really doesn't sound like something we want Steve to experience."

"What about that sentence?" Kono suddenly asked, highlighting a few words on the text. "Claire said she suffered _the last ten years_. What's happened ten years ago?"

"Let's have another look in her file," Danny suggested, intensely staring at the screen while Kono activated Claire Sacotte's file.

"Ten years ago, then we're looking at some event in 2002…" she murmured, quickly skimming through the few dates until she finally gave an excited shout. "There it is, her son died ten years ago."

"And exactly ten years ago to the day, if I'm reading that date correctly," Chin threw in, nodding towards a special date on the screen.

"You're right, cuz," Kono said slowly, her eyes dark and wide. "I can't believe that this is coincidence. Do you think Claire's son is her connection to the boss?"

"Well, that's what we need to find out," Danny replied hoarsely. "Is there any information about the son? Everything might be important."

"Let me quickly call up his file," Kono said, impatiently drumming her thumb against the edge of the table while she waited for the new information to load. "Here it is… Roger Sacotte, born 1980 in Baltimore, he joined the Navy when he was 16, he… oh God!"

Danny's head jerked up when he heard Kono's surprised cry. "What? What is it?" he asked, his eyes hectically darting across the screen. "He was a SEAL?" he asked incredulously a short moment later, shifting his attention from the information to his two teammates. "I think he definitely might be the connection we are looking for."

"Is there any further information about how he died?" Chin asked quietly. "Can we find out if he possibly served together with Steve? Maybe they were on the same team?"

Sliding her fingers over the display, Kono narrowed her eyes as she bent further over the table. After a few more minutes of searching all available files she sadly shook her head. "I just got access to one other file, everything else is classified," she said, looking up when Williams' angry voice interrupted her explanations.

"Great!" Danny exclaimed in frustration, his hands drawing large circles in the air. "If I hear the word 'classified' one more time, I swear I'm gonna kill someone."

"Stay calm brah, okay?" Chin said, putting a steady hand on Danny's shoulder and squeezing until he felt the younger man relax a little bit under his touch. Turning toward his cousin, Kelly asked, "What do we know about Roger Sacotte's death?"

"The exact circumstances of his death are classi…" Kono interrupted herself and cleared her throat, throwing a sympathetic look at Danny before she returned her attention to the information in front of her. "They are not in the file; all it reveals is that Roger's death obviously was some kind of training accident." She looked up from the display, tentatively shrugging her shoulders as she added lowly, "Sorry, but that's all I have."

Gloomy silence filled the room when everyone was caught in their own train of thoughts, trying to process what they had learned about the dead woman and her possible connection to Steve. After a while, Danny heaved a deep sigh while he tiredly rubbed his hands over his face.

"Okay, now we know that Steve might have known Claire or rather her son," he said, summarizing what they had learned in the last few minutes. "But all that information doesn't help us at all to solve the mystery of Steve's disappearance. How on earth are we supposed to find out where McGarrett is?"

* * *

Steve's chest heaved rapidly with heavy panting and his heart hammered painfully fast against his ribcage but none of the measures his body was taking helped him to supply his organs with enough oxygen. The blood was rushing in his ears and his ragged breaths reverberated loudly inside his metal prison, the sound adding to the blinding, agonizing headache that was constantly torturing him.

He felt sick, ready to throw up at any time, and even if it was pitch-black inside the small box and he wasn't able to see a thing, Steve had the feeling that the walls around him moved and shifted, sometimes he wasn't sure anymore where was up and where was down.

Somewhere in the back of his mind McGarrett knew that he was experiencing the first few symptoms of carbon dioxide poisoning, but that knowledge didn't help him at all to feel better or even find a way out of this mess. And knowing what he would have to expect during the next few hours – starting with hallucinations, convulsions and unconsciousness right through to death from paralysis of the respiratory center – made it difficult to keep the upcoming panic at bay, which was already fuelled by the fact that he sometimes felt his heart stutter or do an extra beat.

Exhaustedly leaning his pounding head against the wall, Steve was way beyond caring about his uncomfortable position. Sweat was running down his face, the air inside the box was getting hotter and hotter with every passing minute, making his constant struggle for breath even more difficult. He didn't care anymore if the muscles in his legs cramped painfully or if his back hurt from the long stay inside the too small box, all he was bothering about was the task to draw in enough air and find a way out of his blasted prison.

Gathering all of his remaining strength McGarrett raised his trembling hands and let his fingers run over the smooth metal surfaces that surrounded him. Finding the small unevenness he was looking for, a rivet in the corner just above his head, he tried once more to open it with his bare hands. But as the many times before the small round rivet stayed where it was, not moving the tiniest bit, no matter what he did.

Steve had tried to open the rivet with literally everything he possessed; he had broken every single one of his fingernails up to the point where the tips of his fingers were nothing more than a bloody mess. He had even used the tiny metal pin from the release of his watchband but it had proved much too weak and had broken after the second attempt.

"Dammit," he growled desperately between two gasps, letting his hands tiredly drop down to his side, no longer caring about the pain that shot through his broken wrist. He slowly felt a leaden heaviness settling down onto his mind and body, robbing him of his last, frail amount of energy.

Steve wasn't usually the guy who'd give up easily, but in his current situation he plainly and simply had no other choice. He had tried every method he could think of to escape from his dark, narrow prison, but all he had achieved was to cause his already broken body more injuries and pain.

The darkness swirled around and inside him as he struggled for every painful breath. Sure, he would fight until the bitter end, drawing in the last bit of stuffy air into his lungs until his body finally couldn't take it anymore and ultimately betrayed him, but right now he just had no more resources to try another escape.

All he could do was waiting in the crushing darkness, hoping and praying for help to arrive before it was too late.

**(tbc)**


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you so much - I really don't know what to say. Your reviews are wonderful, please keep them coming :-) And thank you for all the alerts and favorites!

Some of you wondered how the team will find out about Steve's whereabouts and suggested the GPS of his truck... I must admit that this thought never once crossed my mind, I completely forgot about that little device (shame on me!) So my solution will perhaps be a bit less realistic but nevertheless I hope you enjoy the next chapter...**  
**

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**Chapter 5:**

"Thanks again, Max," Chin said, waiting until the glass doors had closed behind the quirky medical examiner. Max Bergmann and two crime scene technicians had not only taken photos and picked up Claire Sacotte's body but also cleaned up the scene so that there was no more evidence of the horrible incident that had taken place inside the Five-0 headquarters.

Staring pensively at the now cleaned up tiles for a long moment Chin finally slightly shook his head and approached his two colleagues who gathered around the big computer table.

"Any ideas?" he asked, noticing that his cousin played around with Steve's iPhone, her brow furrowed in concentration.

"We are trying to find out what exactly Steve was doing this morning and where he has been," Danny explained, watching curiously how Kono placed the cell phone onto the table. He impatiently waited until she had swiped her fingers over the display to activate some kind of program he had absolutely no idea what it was good for.

Obviously noticing Danny's slightly confused impatience the young woman quickly pressed one last button before she turned around with a little sigh to face her teammates.

"There are only two text messages of importance on Steve's phone, no other stuff, no phone calls except one missed call from Danny, no photos of today's date," Kono explained her findings. "The outgoing text message was sent to Danny at six minutes past seven, saying that the boss went for an extended run and that he would be late."

"And then there is your… uhm, let's call it _snappy_ answer," she added, throwing Danny a jolly grin.

"Well, what can I say," Danny said, shrugging his shoulders as he returned the smile. "I'm sure I could have done much better if it hadn't been such an insanely early hour of the day."

"The message is time stamped twelve minutes past seven, Danny. That's not really that early," Kono answered, still a little bit amused but the smile soon dropped from her face. Breathing out a little sigh, she continued, "However, the strange thing is that your answer was still unread until now."

Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Chin said pensively, "Okay, so that means that Steve either didn't bother to read your answer or that something happened to him in the few minutes between the two messages."

"Or maybe Steve didn't write the first message himself," Danny suggested quietly, nervously sucking on his lower lip, his hands unnaturally still.

"Why would you say that?" Chin pressed on Danny's assumption, feeling instinctively that the younger man might be on the right track.

Shrugging his shoulders again, Williams replied tentatively, "I don't know, just a feeling I think." Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Danny turned toward Kono, "Could you open up Steve's message so we can read it?"

"Sure," she answered, and only a heartbeat later all three people stared at the text that was shown on the screen.

"I don't know," Danny repeated, shaking his head in frustration. "There's something that sounds strange but I just can't put my finger on it."

"I can't see anything unusual," Kono said slowly, knitting her brows as she re-read the message once more. "Except maybe from the fact that he…"

"_Steven_," Danny suddenly interrupted her excitedly. "That's it! He signed with Steven. He has never done that before, he always refers to himself as Steve, he never calls himself Steven. Why didn't I notice that before?"

Looking up, Danny searched the faces of his teammates, smiling grimly when he found unreserved approval.

"You're probably right, brah," Kono nodded as she bent further over the smart table. "But if Steve didn't send the message, then who did?" she asked over her shoulder, her fingers again busily dancing over the display.

"I think it's safe to assume that Claire sent the message to Danny," Chin said, throwing a quick glance at his watch.

The look didn't go unnoticed by Danny and he worriedly uttered Kelly's thoughts, "It's half past nine, which means that Steve has been missing for at least two and a half hours by now." A pained expression colored his features as he whispered angrily, "Damn, I should have noticed earlier that there was something wrong with that text message."

"Danny, don't blame yourself," Chin said emphatically. "How could you possibly have known that something was not right?"

"Hey guys," Kono interrupted before Danny was able to give an answer. "I finally got a result."

"You got a result?" Danny repeated, the confusion clearly audible in his voice. "Maybe this is a stupid question, but a result for what?"

"Oh, I tried to find out the location from where the message had been sent," Kono explained patiently.

"You can do that?" Danny asked impressed, looking from Kono to the figures on the screen and back to the young woman.

"Yeah, well, not exactly," Kono backpedaled a little bit, explaining her actions in more detail. "We know the exact time the message was sent. I checked back with the phone company and when I searched their data, I finally found out over which cell phone tower the signal had been sent."

Swiftly pressing a few buttons on the computer table, she brought up a large map onto the screens by swiping her fingers over the display. It was a map of the greater Honolulu area, a bright-red flashing dot covering the majority of the city and a small uninhabited area northeast of it.

Turning toward Chin and Danny, Kono apologetically shrugged her shoulders, "I know that's not much, it's an incredibly big area to start with, but at least we now have a tiny lead. And perhaps we are able to rule out a few locations."

"So, the text message was sent from somewhere inside that blinking blob?" Danny clarified what he just had heard. Seeing Kono's affirmative nod, he breathed out a frustrated sigh, flailing his hands through the air as he added sarcastically, "Great, I think we might have finished searching the area sometime in the next twenty-five years. Piece of cake, right?"

"I'm sorry," Kono answered silently, slightly slouching her shoulders. "But that's all we have."

"I know it's not your fault, you did good," Williams replied quickly, giving her an apologetic smile as he ran his hands over his hair. "It's just… I mean, where shall we start? Steve could be literally anywhere. We don't have a single hint where he might be."

"Perhaps we have one," Chin said pensively as he made a step toward the screen. He raised his hand and pointed a finger at a location on the map. "Here's Steve's house, clearly outside the range of the cell phone tower. That means he was probably not at home when Claire approached him. Let's assume he really went for a run somewhere else…" briefly interrupting his speech, Chin exchanged looks with his two teammates. "Any idea where he would have gone to?"

"I doubt that Steve went down without a fight, so I think we can rule out the more populated areas," Kono mused, also moving closer to the screen. "Even that early in the morning someone probably would have noticed a fight in the middle of the city, so I suggest we concentrate on the other areas," she said, drawing a virtual circle on the map to outline the region she was talking about.

"I know that Steve sometimes drives to Kamehame Ridge on the windward side of the island to go for a run," Chin threw in, pointing once more at a location on the screen. "But that's outside our search grid, so we can also forget about that."

"Hey, wait," Danny suddenly exclaimed excitedly, his eyes feverishly darting across the map. "He told me a few days ago that he'd gone somewhere else…" Rubbing his fingertips, he briefly closed his eyes to refresh his memory. "Wala… Wila… whatever Ridge Trail…" he murmured under his breath, his eyes snapping open when he heard Kono take in a sharp breath of air.

"You mean Wa`ahila Ridge Trail?" she asked, her dark eyes glistening in anticipation.

"Isn't that what I said?" Danny replied, beaming with joy, before he looked back at the map, "Where is it?"

"It's right here," Chin said, showing the exact location on the map.

"It's barely inside the range of the radio mast," Kono nodded hesitantly. "Wa`ahila Ridge Trail is infamous for its lack of cell phone coverage, but nevertheless it might be possible."

All three remaining members of Five-0 stared at the map on the screen for a long moment before Danny finally clapped his hands. "Okay, let's go," he said determinedly into the silence of the room.

"Just one moment," Kono replied, once more letting her fingers rapidly dance over the display.

"What are you doing now?" Danny asked in confusion, looking at Chin for help but the older man was just shrugging his shoulders.

"I'm just sending out a description of Steve's truck so HPD can look out for it," Kono explained, hitting one last button before she looked up with a small grin tugging at her lips. "Okay guys, I'm done, now we can go."

"I'll pack a few things that we might need, let's meet downstairs in ten minutes," Danny said as he turned around and disappeared without another word of explanation.

Raising his eyebrows about the hectic activity that suddenly had erupted around him, Chin cautiously addressed his cousin, "You both know that we're running on pure guess here, right? All we have is a vague idea where Steve possibly might be."

Staring at the man in front of her, Kono breathed out a small sigh. "Yes cuz, we know that. But that's our only lead at the moment," she answered softly.

* * *

Steve's whole body as well as his face was covered with a thin layer of sweat, but he couldn't muster enough energy to wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead. The air around him was even hotter than before; his pants were dripping with sweat, uncomfortably clinging to his aching body.

The headache got worse with every labored breath he drew in, his head was pounding mercilessly in synch with his hammering heartbeat. Steve's chest was aching from the constant struggle to fill his lungs with enough oxygen and suddenly the all-consuming pain in his body became overwhelming as he felt his stomach turn.

Tasting bile at the back of his throat, McGarrett was no longer able to fight back the ever present nausea. All he could manage was weakly turn his body a little bit to one side as far as the constricted space inside the box allowed before he started to retch piteously. He was lucky not having had breakfast, and so all his empty stomach brought up was a little bit of acid as he dry heaved for what seemed like an eternity.

Unable to suppress the small whimper that had built up in his chest, Steve sucked in the air in huge gulps, his mouth wide open in a desperate attempt to get enough oxygen. Despite the sweat that covered his body, he was feeling ice-cold and he had started to shiver heavily. Every once in a while the shivers turned into a full-blown fit of convulsions that only hesitantly subsided after an agonizingly long period of time.

One last time Steve gathered all of his rapidly waning resources, pressing his left hand as well as both feet and legs against the lid of the box, pushing with everything his broken body had to offer. Gritting his teeth, he pushed with all his might against the metal lid until his muscles started to tremble from the effort when he suddenly saw a small strip of light in the far away corner of the box above his feet. Bright sunlight was streaming inside the box, chasing away the heavy darkness, causing him to shut his eyes in pain.

"Steve?"

He almost didn't hear the voice over the rushing of his blood in his ears and over his own labored breathing.

"Steve?"

Forcing his eyes open McGarrett stared into the light, tears were running down his cheeks when his eyes began to burn. The headache spiked to a new level and with the last of his strength he willed his stomach to calm down when a new wave of nausea crashed over him. Panting heavily, his whole body shook in a desperate attempt to fill his lungs with the desperately needed oxygen.

"Danny?" Steve whispered weakly, stretching out his trembling right arm toward the strip of light.

His right hand unexpectedly connected with the metal lid above his head, painfully jostling his broken wrist. The pain sent a bolt of fire through his entire arm, causing him to groan in agony as he squeezed his eyes shut.

After a few moments when the air around him was only filled with his labored gasps, he opened his eyes again, but to his absolute horror the light was gone and he was back in the darkness, alone and broken.

"No…" he breathed out faintly, sagging gloomily onto the floor when once more all he perceived was his own harsh breathing.

* * *

Danny made it downstairs in a little bit less than the intended ten minutes, heavily loaded with a huge first-aid bag and two black backpacks that contained every tiny piece of equipment he considered useful in the search for his partner. To the surprise of his teammates he had also changed from his usual outfit into a pair of jeans and well-worn brown trekking boots.

"Hey brah, you're looking good," Kono smirked as Danny approached his silver Camaro. Her grin grew even bigger when she noticed that he changed his path at the last second, automatically having headed toward the passenger's side of the car as was his habit whenever he rode with Steve.

"Get in," Williams said clipped after he had stowed away all the equipment in the trunk. Looking over at Chin, he nodded once. "See you soon," he said before he climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"I'll meet you at the beginning of the Wa`ahila Ridge Trail," Chin nodded back before he kick-started his motorcycle and swiftly left the parking lot right before Danny and Kono.

Nervously sucking on his lower lip, his fingers tightly wrapped around the wheel Danny silently steered the car through the painfully slow and heavy traffic. His rigid posture relaxed just a tiny bit when they had left the busy downtown area, heading northeastwards out of the town and into less populated and calmer areas where they were able to drive a lot faster than before.

"What's all that?" Kono asked after a while, pointing over her shoulder toward the trunk of the car. On the one hand she tried to ease the tense atmosphere in the car; on the other hand she really was curious about all the equipment Danny had brought along.

Throwing her a brief grin, Danny sheepishly shrugged his shoulders. "I just wanna be prepared," he replied, sighing heavily. "With Steve one never knows…" His voice trailed off as he shifted his attention back to the road.

"Only about five more minutes," Kono said quietly when it became clear that Danny for once wasn't in the mood to make conversation. "Take the next right, we're almost there."

And true to her words only a few minutes later they finally reached their meeting point at the beginning of the Wa`ahila Ridge Trail, finding the parking lot empty except for Steve's dark blue pickup truck, Chin's motorcycle and one other car, an outworn, red Jeep Wrangler. It was exactly five minutes past ten when Danny parked his Camaro directly next to the three other vehicles, getting out of the car and joining Chin's side in one swift move.

The older man was already busy examining McGarrett's truck, nodding a short greeting at his two teammates as he pointed to the passenger's side. "Muddy footprints, looks like the glove compartment was violently forced open," he quickly explained his findings, not wasting any of their precious time to build complete sentences. "Nothing else of importance."

Puffing out a long breath between his gritted teeth, Danny let his eyes slowly travel across the empty parking lot, raising his brows when his gaze fell on the closed gate at the beginning of the trail.

"So, we found Steve's car but what do we do now?" he asked, his voice hoarse and full of worry for his partner as he looked back at Chin and Kono. "Where on earth do we start looking for McGarrett? Even if we assume that he disappeared somewhere along the trail – which is closed by the way, in case you haven't noticed – we certainly cannot search the whole trail on our own. We have absolutely no idea what that crazy woman did to Steve or if she even dumped him somewhere nearby." He heaved a frustrated sigh, his hands angrily cutting through the air as he grumbled with a brief glare at the muddy stains in Steve's car and at the empty Jeep, "And why would anyone even go on this trail if it's not only closed but also muddy as hell. Dammit Steve, why couldn't you have stayed at home, for once sleeping in just like every other normal person would have done."

"Hey calm down brah, okay?" Kono said patiently, putting a hand on Danny's forearm to prevent any further hand movements. "First of all the trail is not completely closed and then all the mud might give us a huge advantage," she added, a small, smug grin playing around her lips.

"Why would a muddy path in the middle of a godforsaken jungle be an advantage?" Danny asked grumpily, staring sullenly at the beginning of the trail that disappeared beneath the lush green vegetation.

"Because with all that mud, it will hopefully be easy to follow Steve's track," Chin explained quietly, closing the door of Steve's Silverado as he nodded toward the gate. "Come on, let's go, let's not waste any more time."

"So, now you're able to read tracks?" Danny asked curiously while he quickly opened the trunk of his car, looking down at the equipment he brought with him. "What are you, an old Indian shaman?" he asked with a little smirk as he handed Chin one of the backpacks.

"Well, finding a footprint in a pool of mud shouldn't be too difficult," Chin answered confidently, slinging the bag over his shoulders as he watched Danny doing the same with the second backpack before he gave the smaller first-aid bag to Kono.

Slamming shut the trunk lid Williams heaved another deep sigh, clapping his hands once before he said with a grim smile, "Okay, then lead the way, wise Manitou."

Swiftly heading toward the gate, Danny, Chin and Kono began to search for their missing leader when they suddenly heard animated chatter coming from the trail. Exchanging looks they silently rushed forward, finding themselves soon face to face with a young, surprised looking couple.

After having shown their badges and told their names, Chin asked quietly, "When did you arrive here? Have you seen anyone else on the trail?"

"We came out here early this morning, at about half past seven," the tall, dark-skinned young woman answered politely. "There was only one other car at the parking lot, something big, dark-blue, I think…"

"A Silverado," her boyfriend chimed in, nodding in agreement. "But we haven't seen anyone on the trail; we were all alone the whole time."

"The trail is pretty muddy and it's closed from halfway down," the girl explained, pointing back over her shoulder. "That's probably the reason not many people are coming out here right now."

"You haven't by chance noticed any footprints, have you?" Danny asked, even if he was already sure what the answer would be.

"Hey, sorry dude, but really haven't paid attention to footprints," the young guy answered, leering down at his girlfriend as he wrapped his arm tighter around her waist. "I was kind of busy looking at other things, if you know what I mean…" his voice trailed off as he conspiratorially winked at Danny.

"Sure," Danny answered, trying to suppress a frustrated sigh. "Thanks anyway," he added, dismissing the young couple with a brief flick of his wrist. Staring after them for a short moment, Danny finally turned around toward his teammates.

"Okay, so we know that Steve's car has been parked here since early this morning," Kono said excitedly before Danny could even think of something to say. "I think we really might be on the right track."

"Let's hope so," Williams nodded hesitantly, warily looking down at the muddy ground beneath his feet. "So, where do we start?"

Making a few tentative steps, Chin let his gaze travel along the path, motioning his friends to come closer as he crouched down a short time later. "Look at this," he said, tracing the outlines of a surprisingly clear footprint. "That's definitely the imprint of a sneaker, that's what we're looking for. The young couple was wearing trekking boots just like the three of us; if we assume that they were the only other people on the trail today except for Steve and Claire, then we can be fairly sure that this is one of Steve's shoeprints."

Slightly raising his eyebrows, Danny bent down to have a closer look at the imprint. "Okay, even I can see the difference between a sneaker and a trekking boot," he finally said, his voice laced with a tiny hint of confidence. "This may really work," he added, sounding a little bit surprised as he happily clapped Chin on the shoulder.

"Come on guys," Danny said, his gaze darting nervously between Chin and Kono before he turned around and swiftly walked along the muddy path. "Let's find Steve."

* * *

White dots flashed in the darkness before Steve's closed eyes.

The task of drawing enough air into his lungs was slowly becoming too much, his brow furrowed in pain and panic when another fit of convulsions racked his abused body.

The darkness of his tiny prison started to press firmly against McGarrett's mind like a thick and heavy blanket that shut out every emotion, but Steve was plainly and simply too exhausted to care about it.

He faintly registered the tingling sensation in his hands and feet and the fact that his whole body was shivering pitifully. He even absently noticed that his breathing was no longer fast and labored and somewhere deep in the back of his mind he knew that he should be concerned about that fact.

Steve had the feeling that the walls were pressing tighter against his body, crushing him slowly and painfully, but he was too exhausted to really care. He didn't mind the leaden weight that pressed against his mind, in fact he actually felt more and more comfortable with every passing second. The tingling in his limbs got stronger, but apart from that strange sensation his whole body felt heavy and numb.

Taking in a huge gulp of air, Steve's body twitched once before he lay perfectly still, the sudden silence in the box almost deafening.

After a few seconds there was another convulsive gasp for air, again followed by a period of eerie silence. A small voice deep inside Steve's failing consciousness screamed at him to fight the deathly lethargy and to control his breathing, urging him to increase his breathing rate but it was to no avail.

There were four or five more gasps, each of them followed by longer and longer periods of silence before Steve's exhausted mind and body yielded under the pressure of the darkness. He felt his chest heaving with a last gulp of air and then he felt nothing at all when he ultimately lost his battle to stay conscious.

**(tbc)**

* * *

I'm sorry - really! ;-) So please don't hate me...**  
**


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks again for all your lovely reviews, they really make my day!  
Here's the next chapter, a little earlier than intended, but I'm sure you don't mind ;-)

* * *

**Chapter 6:**

"Let's get back to where we found that last imprint of Steve's sneakers," Kono suggested, puffing out a frustrated sigh as she stared down at the chaos of footprints on a particularly muddy spot of the path.

Wiping the sweat from his face, Danny threw her a gloomy look before he turned around to look out for Chin. The older man had gone ahead a few minutes ago to check around the next corner and still hadn't come back.

By now Danny's mood had almost hit the rock bottom. He was sweating in the hot and humid morning sun, his shirt was clinging to his body and his initial confidence that they would be able to find Steve if they only followed his footprints had soon vanished into thin air. At the beginning of the trail it had been relatively easy to follow Steve's tracks but after about a mile the path got less and less muddy because it was covered by lush, almost impermeable trees that had successfully kept away the previous night's rain.

For the next one or two miles Chin, Kono or Danny found another faint imprint of a sneaker every now and then, relieved to find themselves still on the right track but then suddenly they seemed to have run out of luck when they weren't able to find another imprint during the last fifteen minutes.

Danny looked up when he heard Chin coming back to join him and Kono. "I checked the path in that direction," Chin said a little breathless, pointing over his left shoulder. "There are a lot of big muddy spots, but the strange thing is that there are no footprints at all, not from trekking boots and certainly not from sneakers."

"I'm pretty sure that here's also no imprint of a sneaker," Kono said, still staring at the mud beneath her feet. "There are a lot of footprints but as far as I can tell, they all belong to trekking boots of various sizes."

"Okay, so we know that Steve probably disappeared somewhere between here and that last imprint half a mile down the path, right?" Danny said hoarsely, gingerly tugging at his sweat-soaked shirt.

"That's the only hint we have," Kono confirmed with a sad little shrug of her shoulders.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Williams asked, firmly pushing his own needs for a cold shower and a break to the back of his mind. Taking a deep breath he readjusted the heavy backpack on his shoulders as he exchanged grim looks with his friends.

"Let's go," Chin said, motioning to the direction they originally had come from. "I suggest we check the sides of the path for anything unusual. Look out for broken branches or twigs and of course for more footprints."

"Okay," Kono replied, nodding in agreement. "You take the left side, Danny and I will check the right side."

Twenty minutes later they were almost back at the place where they had found the last visible footprint of a sneaker and so far nothing had raised their suspicion. The bushes on both sides of the trail were dense and the green leaves didn't give a single hint that maybe someone had stepped through them.

Getting more and more nervous with every passing moment, Danny had the strange feeling that they were slowly running out of time. He didn't know where that feeling came from but he suddenly knew for sure that they had to find McGarrett soon or otherwise it might be too late. Hesitantly slowing down his steps until he came to a halt, Danny furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to dismiss the sudden emotion as nothing more than another touch of nervousness. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, hoping that the knot in his stomach would loosen a little bit, but if anything the weird feeling settled even deeper in his gut.

Williams felt the heavy backpack painfully press against his collarbones and he rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to relax his muscles. With a last heavy sigh he opened his eyes and let his gaze travel over the lush vegetation. Deep down in his heart Danny was and always would be a city boy but if he was honest, he somehow understood why Steve preferred to spend a lot of his spare time out here in the woods, not that he would ever admit such crazy thoughts in front of his partner. But the rich vegetation, the trees that slightly swayed in the gentle breeze, the multitude of different colors, all imaginable shades of green, laced with a tiny bit of red or yellow here and there really helped to calm his frayed nerves and he finally felt the nervousness slowly retreating bit by bit.

But then the weird sensation was back with a vengeance and Danny had the feeling that someone had just punched him in the gut when his gaze fell upon a group of head-high bushes with fancy wine-red leaves a few steps away from the trail.

Without questioning the strange feeling any further Danny swiftly left the trail and squeezed through some plants at the right side of the path, heading directly toward the red-leaved bushes.

"Danny? Did you find something?" Kono asked curiously when she noticed that her teammate no longer followed the trail.

"I'm not sure," Williams replied vaguely as he pointed at the bushes that had caught his eye. "Just a feeling… let me quickly check something…" His voice trailed off as he cautiously stepped around the bushes and disappeared from Kono's view.

At first glance Danny didn't notice anything unusual, and he was just about to ultimately dismiss the strange feeling that had brought him here, when something grabbed his attention.

"Kono, Chin, over here!" he shouted loudly, rushing forward toward a small muddy path that lay hidden between some small trees. The beginning of the path looked like a whole company had repeatedly marched over it, covered with two different kinds of footprints, one of them definitely the imprint of a sneaker.

But the most worrisome discovery was a large spot of something dark that had soaked the light brown soil. Taking a deep breath, Danny crouched down to have a closer look at it, and he felt his heart constricting painfully in his chest when his worst fears were confirmed.

Only a heartbeat later, Chin and Kono broke through the bushes behind him, breathlessly coming to a halt by his side.

"Danny? What is it?" Kono asked as she knelt down next to him, gasping in surprise and horror when she realized what he was looking at. "Is that…"

"Blood," Danny nodded grimly, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"You think it's Steve`s?" Kono wanted to know, her voice lacking most of its usual confidence.

"I have absolutely no idea," Williams answered quietly as he struggled back to his feet. "But knowing Steve's exceptional gift to attract trouble, I'm pretty sure that the answer is 'yes'."

"Look at all those footprints," Chin tossed in, pointing at the muddy spot that Danny had already noticed earlier. "Don't you think that looks a lot like some sort of fight took place right here?"

Nodding in agreement, Kono slowly circled the chaos of footprints, her gaze glued to the traces on the ground. Narrowing her eyes she pushed aside a few small branches to have a better view of the narrow path. "And that looks like something heavy has been dragged toward that clearing over there," the young woman exclaimed, already darting forward before the last of her words had trailed off.

"Something heavy…" Danny repeated pensively, exchanging a determined look with his teammate.

"… or someone," Chin finished the sentence, briefly locking eyes with the younger man before both of them hurried after Kono.

Not even a minute later all three of them stumbled onto the small clearing, breathing heavily from the short run along the slippery path. The abused ACL in Danny's right knee was screaming at him since he had slipped on a particularly muddy spot a few moments ago, but he pushed the pain to the back of his mind, solely concentrating on the task to find his partner.

"Over there!" he whispered hoarsely, pointing at a metal plate that was almost completely hidden in the ground.

Carelessly dropping their bags onto the floor, Chin, Kono and Danny knelt down around their finding, immediately starting to examine the plate.

"It's the lid of a box," Chin said harshly, his voice laced with surprise and anger, already digging his fingers into the moist soil around the metal plate to clear the edges.

"Steve? Hey, Steve?" Danny shouted, banging his fist against the metal plate. "Steve? You in there? Can you hear us? Steve?"

"Do you really think he's in there?" Kono asked when there was no answer, clearly taken aback by the idea that their boss might be buried in a narrow metal box in the middle of the forest.

"He'd better be," Williams answered through gritted teeth. "Because we've obviously run out of other options." Briefly raising his gaze to look at Kono, he noticed the same amount of fear and concern in her dark eyes that he was sure was showing in his own, blue ones. "I've packed a few things – have a look if there's something we can use to pry open that damn lid, okay?" He asked, nodding towards the two black backpacks they brought with them.

"I'm on it," Kono nodded back as she grabbed the nearest bag, emptying its contents on the floor next to her, immediately repeating the action with the second backpack.

"A few things?" she whistled through her teeth once she had taken a look at all the equipment that was lying in front of her. "You're better equipped than a Himalaya expedition. Where the hell did you get all that stuff, brah?" Kono asked while she handed Danny and Chin a small folding shovel each. Rummaging through the pile of tools, knives, flashlights, ropes and hooks, she also found some other items she was not really sure what they were actually good for.

"I raided McGarrett's locker," Danny answered, briefly looking up from his task, a bright smirk on his face. "You won't believe what else he's keeping there."

"You're unbelievable," Kono said with a small shake of her head before she quickly returned her attention to the metal lid. Narrowing her eyes, she moved her fingers over the edge of the box where Danny and Chin had already removed a bit of the soil around it. "The lid is sealed with some kind of silicone," she said, trying to dig her fingernails into the almost clear mass but it proved to be impossible.

"Take one of those knives and see if you can cut it away," Kelly instructed quietly, putting away his shovel. "We need to get access to those rivets to open the box." Without looking up, he also grabbed a knife and started to work on the silicone, his voice dark and grave when he added, "And hurry up… I think the only purpose of the silicone is to seal the box airtight."

"Airtight?" Kono repeated wide-eyed. "For all we know Steve's been in there for probably more than four hours. Is there even enough air…" her voice trailed off in mid-sentence, her unspoken question hovering gloomily over their heads.

"Don't even think about it," Danny angrily growled through gritted teeth, forcefully digging a knife into the rubbery mass of silicone. "We're not too late, okay? We're not too late!" Putting all of his power in the task at hand, he breathed heavily from the exertion, ignoring his aching fingers that cramped around the handle of the knife.

After about five or six minutes that seemed like an eternity to Danny, he finally managed to cut a small hole into the clear mass. Digging the blade as deep as possible into the small opening he twisted and turned the knife to extend the hole as far as possible.

"Danny, I think that's enough," Chin said after another minute, gently grabbing the younger man's forearm to stop any further movement. "Now let me check on the rivet."

Breathing out a shaky sigh, Williams hesitantly backed off to give Chin enough space to work on the now exposed rivet. Slowly uncurling his trembling fingers, Danny let the knife carelessly drop to the ground before he placed his right hand on the lid in front of him. Briefly closing his eyes, he licked his dry lips, then he clenched his fingers into a fist and banged once more against the metal plate.

"Steve? Hey, Steve, hang on, okay? We'll get you out of there. Hang on, man, do you hear me?" Danny shouted, desperately waiting for an answer that never came. "We'll get you out, just a few more moments."

"Danny, I managed to cut away another piece of silicone," Kono said excitedly, digging her slender fingers into the tiny hole she had created. "Help me peel off that stuff so we can open the lid."

Together they were able to remove a decent portion of the sealant when they were interrupted by Chin's dark voice. "The rivet is gone," he said, the words sending a tiny wave of relief and hope through everyone's mind. "Now give me something I can use as a lever," Chin ordered quietly without looking up.

"How about that, cuz?" Kono asked grinning as she handed him a small crowbar that she had found amongst the many items of Danny's life-saving equipment.

Raising his eyebrows, Chin threw a brief look at Danny as he took the offered tool from Kono's outstretched hands. "Kono is right, you're really unbelievable," he said, a small grin playing around his lips when he saw Danny nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders. "And I don't think I want to know what else McGarrett keeps in his locker and most of all how you know about all that stuff, brah."

Forcefully ramming the crowbar into the tiny space that had been formed after the small rivet had been removed Chin gathered all his strength and tried to break open the lid of the metal box. Two times the tool slipped off, causing Kelly to restore his grip around the handle, but then the third time he was finally lucky and the lid burst open with a sickening metallic screech, only to bounce back immediately and fall shut again, allowing the three people outside nothing more than a brief glimpse into the box.

"He's in there," Kono breathed out faintly at the same time as Williams darted forward.

"Steve!" he shouted, helping Chin, who had dropped the no longer needed crowbar, to open the metal lid of McGarrett's prison.

"Oh God," Kono whispered hoarsely at the sight of their boss, raising her left hand to cover her mouth in shock.

Steve's broken form, much too tall for the narrow dimensions of the box, was lying curled up on the metal floor plate, his legs and arms folded to his body, his head at an uncomfortable looking angle leaning against one of the walls. He was dressed in nothing but gray shorts and white sneakers, his clothes stained with dried mud and blood, a dark blue piece of fabric tightly wrapped around his right wrist.

Eyes closed, the blue-tinged lips slightly spread Steve lay perfectly still. Danny could see no movement of his chest, the deathly pale face slack with an almost calm expression. The ashen complexion and the dark smudges under his eyes formed a sharp contrast to the blood that had run from the nasty wound on Steve's temple, caking the whole left side of his face and neck.

Time seemed to stand still while Danny noticed every tiny detail of his partner's injuries with cruel clarity; the deep wounds on Steve's wrists and ankles, most probably caused by the pieces of thin red rope that lay in a corner of the box. The bloody scratches on his bare arms and legs, most of them covered with a thin layer of dried mud; the swollen right hand underneath the makeshift bandage around his wrist. The fingers of his left hand loosely curled around his broken watch.

The raw and bloody fingertips that looked too much like Steve had literally tried to scratch through the walls of his metal prison. Danny had to forcefully fight back the rising nausea when his gaze fell on the lid of the box and he briefly closed his eyes in disgust when the smudges of blood confirmed that sickening and horrible thought.

A sharp intake of air somewhere behind him jolted him out of his trance and in the blink of an eye Danny leaped into action.

"Help me get him out of there," Danny addressed Chin in a low growl, climbing half into the box to grab his partner's legs while Chin put his hands beneath McGarrett's shoulders. Together, with Kono's help as she gently laid her hands left and right of Steve's head to prevent any unwanted movement, they managed to heave their leader out of his temporary grave.

The term rushed unbidden through Danny's mind when they gently placed Steve's lifeless body onto the soft soil, causing him to grimly shake his head in denial. _No, no, no, not grave,_ he thought desperately, looking up at Chin who just pressed his fingers against Steve's carotid in search of a pulse.

"Is he alive?" Williams asked hoarsely, his brow furrowed in pure fear and worry, not caring at all that his voice was audibly shaking.

Chin's lips were pressed together in a thin line, but after a moment he nodded grimly. "I have a weak pulse, very fast, but I think he's not breathing," he said through gritted teeth. Briefly holding his hand in front of Steve's mouth and nose he slightly shook his head before he bent down, bringing his ear closely to Steve's face.

"No, he's definitely not breathing," Kelly confirmed a moment later, his dark eyes black with worry when he threw Danny a brief glance. "Do you have some sort of respirator or oxygen in your bag? Otherwise I'm starting rescue breathing right now."

"In fact I have," Danny answered with a mirthless smile, already busy rummaging through the huge first-aid bag and only a heartbeat later he handed Chin a small blue Ambu bag.

Placing the mask over Steve's mouth and nose Chin immediately started to pump air into Steve's lungs, noticing with a tiny hint of relief that McGarrett's chest rose and fell each time he squeezed the bag.

"It's working," Chin said quietly, turning his head to face his teammates just in time to see Danny tossing Kono a bulky black device.

"Call a medevac team," Danny said, grabbing the first-aid bag as he moved closer to his unconscious partner.

Easily catching the device with her right hand, Kono immediately folded out the antenna of the satellite phone, waiting for a signal before she hit a few buttons.

"Rescue's on the way, they're sending an Army Evac chopper," she said only half a minute later, nervously fidgeting with the phone in her hands. Staring down at Steve's prone form for a long moment, Kono finally heaved a deep sigh, hesitantly kneeling down next to Danny.

Biting back the rage and sorrow that rushed over her at the sight of Steve's injuries, she put the satellite phone on the ground, her gaze darting between Danny and her cousin. "Will he be alright?" she asked tentatively, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

"Yes, he will be alright," Danny replied fiercely through gritted teeth without looking up, not ready to accept any other outcome. He was tending to the nasty wound on Steve's left temple, awkwardly working around the mask that Chin still pressed tightly against Steve's face, stoically squeezing the Ambu bag in a constant rhythm.

"You hear me, Steve?" Danny asked hoarsely, addressing his injured partner in a desperate attempt to provoke any kind of reaction. "You'd better be alright or I swear to God, I'll kill you myself for all the trouble you're causing us. I had to go for a hike in order to rescue your lazy ass and you know exactly how much I detest hiking, especially in the middle of a godforsaken jungle on probably the hottest day of the century. I'm telling you once and for all, Steven, if that trouble was all for nothing, you'd better be prepared for my revenge."

Raising his left arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Danny's blue eyes were clouded with worry when he looked up to meet Chin's gaze. "Is he breathing on his own now?" he asked softly, biting on his lower lip when he noticed the defeated expression on Kelly's face, telling him everything he needed to know.

"No," Chin answered with a sad shake of his head, trying to hide the fear that colored his features when he once more pressed his fingers against Steve's neck. "Pulse is getting weaker," he said, not able to choke back his next words. "Prepare to do chest compressions in case…"

"No!" Danny exclaimed angrily, clenching his fist around the gauze pads he had used to clean the wound on Steve's temple. "We're not losing him! His heart won't stop beating! We are NOT losing him, okay?" Taking a deep shuddering breath, wrapping his fingers around Steve's left hand as he begged desperately, "Fight, Steve, I know you can do it. You were hanging on for so long; now keep fighting just a little bit longer. Do you hear me, buddy? We found you, but now you have to hang on, okay? Hang on…" His voice trailed off and his head jerked up when a familiar sound reached their ears, huge rotor blades that noisily cut through the air.

"Army Evac's here," Kono commented unnecessarily as she jumped to her feet and rushed to the middle of the small clearing to indicate their position.

"Thank God," Danny whispered, immediately returning his attention to his partner. Noticing that his right hand was still clenched into a fist, Danny willed himself to relax his tense muscles a little bit. Uncurling his fingers, he carelessly dropped the crumpled gauze pads to the floor before he took McGarrett's limp hand in both of his own, hoping that the physical contact was enough to bring Steve back from the dangerous abyss he was heading to.

**(tbc)**

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Next chapter in a few days, thanks a lot for reading :-) I'd love to hear what you think...**  
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	7. Chapter 7

Thank you so much for your continuous support, for all the reviews, favorites and alerts, you guys are really amazing. My last few days were terribly busy and I'm really sorry that I haven't found the time to answer all of your wonderful comments - but you can be sure that I appreciate every single one of them! Thanks a lot! :-)

* * *

**Chapter 7:**

The clearing was much too small for the Army helicopter to land, so the aircraft hovered over the trees like a huge, dark predator. The rotor blades chopped noisily through the air, causing the trees to sway dangerously, shedding their leaves that whirled to the ground like giant green snowflakes before they calmly settled down on the muddy ground.

Squinting to protect their eyes from the artificial storm, Kono, Chin and Danny watched impatiently how the helicopter descended as much as possible before two Army medics swiftly rappelled down, landing only a few steps away from the waiting Five-0 team. Their feet had barely touched the ground when they immediately released their safety hooks and rushed over to Steve's side.

"Can you tell me what's happened?" the taller of the two men asked, addressing no one in particular as he put his large bag onto the ground, opened it up and pulled out a stethoscope and a few other medical instruments. Slipping off his helmet, he revealed cropped red hair that almost seemed to glow in the bright sunlight.

Listening to Danny's sparse explanations the medic exchanged a brief silent conversation with his partner before he pressed the stethoscope against Steve's bare chest. The other man motioned Chin to keep on handling the Ambu bag while he wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Steve's left upper arm. Reluctantly Danny stepped back a bit and let go of Steve's hand to make space for the two soldiers to work but both men radiated calm and professionalism so that Danny immediately had the feeling that Steve was in good hands.

"He had been trapped in that box for how long?" the red-haired medic asked in surprise and disgust as he stowed the stethoscope away in his bag a few moments later. His gaze darted from his patient to the tiny metal box before it came to rest on Danny.

"We don't know for sure," Williams replied, heaving a frustrated sigh as he ran his hands over his hair. "But we think it had been for at least four hours."

"Not much air in there…" the second medic murmured under his breath, his brow furrowed in concern. Locking eyes with his partner he instructed quietly, "He's not breathing on his own, pulse is fast and shallow and his vitals are dropping constantly. Let's just insert a laryngeal tube to help him breathe, there's no time to sedate him to get a proper endotracheal tube in. We have to move him to Tripler as fast as possible." Swiftly standing up, he said with a nod toward the hovering helicopter, "I'll prepare the harness while you insert the tube, I'll be right back."

Without looking up the red-haired medic nodded shortly as he rummaged through his bag and only a moment later he pulled out a small plastic tube and a black oxygen tank. Quietly talking to Chin who was still regularly squeezing the Ambu bag, he quickly explained the procedure as he knelt down next to Steve's head. He checked his equipment one last time and then motioned Chin to take the Ambu bag away.

In one swift, experienced move he opened Steve's mouth and slid the tube in but immediately removed it again when the unconscious man started to gag weakly, obviously fighting against the foreign body in his throat. With a concerned frown the medic dropped the tube and snatched the Ambu bag from Chin's hands. "He's not tolerating the tube," he said, gesturing Chin to press the mask over Steve's mouth and nose, while he configured a few settings on the oxygen bottle that he'd carefully placed onto the ground next to Steve's head. "Well, I guess the mask has to do for now, we'll handle everything else when we have him loaded into the chopper."

Putting away all the medical equipment into his bag, his gaze fell on Danny who had moved back to his partner's side, his fingers once more curled around Steve's limp hand. "Luckily Tripler is only a few minutes flight away," the red-haired man said with a small smile, pressing his fingers against Steve's neck to check the pulse of his patient one more time. Scanning Steve's body for any other injury that needed attention, he noticed the small visible part of the yellow print on McGarrett's dark blue top that was still wrapped around his right wrist. "He's a SEAL?" the soldier asked curiously when he recognized the logo, raising his eyebrows in surprise while he grabbed his helmet.

"Ex SEAL," Danny confirmed. "Now head of Five-0. Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett."

Looking up the medic let his gaze briefly travel over Danny before he returned his concentration to his patient. "Five-0? I've heard a lot about you guys. Williams, right?"

"Danny," the blond detective answered, bending a little bit forward to throw a look at the medic's name tag on the front of his green overall. "And you are?"

"Sergeant Julian Pepper, or Match to my friends," the medic said with a crisp gesture toward his coppery hair that really made him look a little bit like a giant matchstick. Turning around when he heard footsteps approaching he slipped on his helmet and raised to his feet in one swift move.

"Sergeant Pepper?" Danny asked, not able to completely ban the smirk from his voice despite the dire situation they were in and his worry for Steve. "Seriously? And he's a member of your Lonely Hearts Club Band?" he pointed at the second medic who had just returned and was now grinning knowingly at Danny's comment, apparently he'd heard the same remark a few times before.

"Great, another Beatles fan," Match replied indulgently, clearly accustomed to the obvious joke. "There must be millions of you out there." A small smile played around his lips as he stared down at Danny who still knelt by Steve's side. "That's Sergeant José Garrocha," he introduced, nodding toward his partner.

"José to my friends, no fancy nickname," Garrocha added with a little grin before he turned serious and pointed over his shoulder. "Match, I've prepared everything, let's get him airborne."

"Can I come with him?" Danny asked desperately as he jumped to his feet, not willing to leave his partner's side for a single moment.

Having noticed the way Danny had held Steve's hand tightly in his own the whole time, Match considered the plea for a moment. But he had been a soldier long enough to know comradeship when he saw it and so he finally said, "Usually it's not standard, but I think we can make an exception." Slapping Danny on the shoulder, he flashed him a bright grin as he nodded toward the waiting helicopter, "Come on, let's strap you in."

* * *

Danny remembered vividly Steve's and his trip to the petroglyphs that had also ended with a flight in an Army Evac chopper, at least for Steve. But watching the rescue from safe ground or being part of it, the rotor blades cutting through the air directly above your head while you were hanging from a swaying rope, tightly strapped to a brightly grinning soldier, were clearly two very different animals and Danny puffed out a relieved breath when he felt the relatively safe metal floor of the helicopter under his feet.

As was expected his hairstyle hadn't withstood the turbulences and Danny ran both hands over his hair to smooth it back to its usual look before he moved over to his partner. McGarrett had been hoisted first and by the time Danny sat down by his side, Sergeant Garrocha had already attached Steve to another ventilator, a breathing mask covering most of Steve's pale face.

Williams heard Sergeant Pepper – and he had to suppress another fit of hysterical laughter when he thought about that name – shout something behind him and a moment later he felt the helicopter gain height and tilt gently to the left.

Once more grabbing Steve's left, uninjured hand, Danny noticed for the first time how cold and clammy his skin was. His gaze fixed on Steve's slack face he wrapped both of his hands around Steve's and squeezed gently, hoping to provoke any reaction from his unconscious friend.

Despite the heavy headphones it was uncomfortably noisy inside the huge Army chopper and Danny was glad that Tripler was not even ten miles linear distance. On the few minutes flight there was just enough time for the medics to search for a vein in Steve's arm, start an IV and attach a few ECG electrodes to Steve's chest. Danny tried to ignore the chatter of the two men he heard over his headphones, because he had no idea what all the medical terms and figures meant and that just added to his lingering worry.

Not even five minutes later he felt the helicopter slowing down and losing height and when he turned his head to throw a brief look out of the window Danny saw the huge hospital complex of Tripler Army Medical Center right in front of them. Breathing out a relieved sigh when the aircraft landed with a gentle bump at the hospital's helipad, Danny suddenly felt how Steve's left hand in his grip started to tremble ever so slightly. Frowning, he immediately returned his attention to his injured partner just in time to see a faint shiver run through McGarrett's body.

"Match?" Danny said hesitantly, addressing the red-haired medic who was preparing the ventilator and the IV bag, so that it would be possible to unload Steve's gurney as soon as Sergeant Garrocha opened the huge sliding door and hand over Steve to the waiting medical team without losing time.

"Match?" Danny repeated more urgently when another shiver racked Steve's body. "I think something's wrong, he…"

But before Danny was able to finish his sentence, the shivering increased and suddenly developed into a full-blown seizure.

"Shit," the tall medic exclaimed as he bolted to his patient's side in the blink of an eye. "Commander McGarrett? Can you hear me? Commander?" Match asked loudly, trying to get through to Steve but if anything the seizure got even worse.

Swiftly drawing up a clear liquid into a syringe he shouted over his shoulder, "José? Hurry up – and tell them he's convulsing."

"Shit," Match repeated through gritted teeth, nodding sharply toward Danny. "Danny, I need your help," he said, motioning the Jersey cop to take his place at Steve's side. "Talk to him and try to calm him down, but don't touch him while he's still convulsing," he instructed, hurriedly inserting the medication into Steve's IV line.

Wide-eyed and on the verge of panicking at the sight of the recent events Danny did as instructed, rushing to Steve's side while he repeatedly called his friend's name.

Whatever Match had administered seemed to act fast because only a moment later Danny saw Steve relax onto the gurney, but nevertheless he was scared out of his wits. The short flight to the hospital had been smooth and nothing had indicated that Steve's condition would take such a turn for the worse.

His gaze glued to his partner's ashen face, Danny was barely aware that someone grabbed him by the arm, gently guided him away from Steve's side and made him sit down, his back against one of the cold metal walls of the chopper. He watched absently how Steve's gurney was yanked out of the helicopter and soon McGarrett was out of sight when the team of medics rushed him into the hospital building.

Williams startled when he felt someone touch his shoulder and then the headphones were gently slipped off from his head. Astonished he noticed that it was suddenly eerily quiet, obviously the pilot had turned off the engine a moment ago and only the big rotor blades swooshed smoothly and sluggishly through the air before they also came to a complete halt. Raising his hands to rub the sudden tiredness from his face Danny registered detachedly that his fingers were trembling visibly. Slightly leaning forward, he put his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. Pressing his palms against his closed eyes, he breathed deeply in and out a few times until he once more felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Danny, you alright?" Match's calm voice barely penetrated Danny's dazed mind and he had to pull himself together to actually understand the words through the buzzing in his ears. "You're not going to pass out on us, are you?"

His face still hidden in his hands, Danny took another deep breath, the minute shake of his head almost invisible.

"Come on, man, talk to us. You alright?" Match repeated, a bit more urgently this time as he slapped Danny gently on the shoulder.

With a tired little sigh, Danny finally let his hands drop to his lap and opened his eyes. Looking up he was slightly embarrassed to notice that the two Army medics watched him intently with a concerned expression, ready to provide support at any time.

"Yeah, I'm alright," he replied hoarsely, rolling his shoulders as he flashed them a sheepish smile. "Sorry, it's just…" Danny's voice trailed off when he weakly waved his hands through the air, vaguely motioning in the direction Steve had disappeared only a few moments ago.

"You're worried for your partner," Garrocha finished his sentence, nodding in sympathy. "No problem, we understand."

"What the hell just happened there?" Danny asked quietly for the second time that day, begging the two men in front of him for an explanation. "Steve, he was… I mean…" he interrupted himself, noisily clearing his throat before he tried again. "He seemed not to be too bad; I mean as good as he can be expected to be under the circumstances. Why the sudden seizure? What is happening to him?"

"Hey, give him some time, okay?" Match said reassuringly, placing his hand again on Danny's shoulder. "Your friend had been trapped inside a tiny metal box for God knows how long, it was dark, there wasn't much air and it was probably incredibly hot in there. Added to this we're probably dealing with a nasty concussion and I'm pretty sure that little burn on the side of his neck was caused by a taser."

Danny's head jerked up at the mention of a taser and he gritted his teeth in sympathy and anger. What else had that crazy woman – and by now Danny was sure that all that had happened to Steve was indeed Claire Sacotte's doing – done to his partner?

"His body needs just a little bit of time to cope with everything," Match said, giving Danny's shoulder a gentle squeeze before he grabbed the smaller man's arm and pulled him to his feet. "Hey, he's a SEAL, he will pull through, trust me. These people are the craziest and toughest guys in the whole military, and I freely admit this even if I'm not Navy myself."

"Tell me about it," Danny snorted at that comment, feeling how a tiny bit of the pent-up tension left his body. "But it's nice to finally get it officially confirmed that he's batshit crazy."

"Come on," Sergeant Garrocha said with a nod of his head, gently pushing Danny toward the open helicopter door. "We'll show you the waiting room where you can wait for information on your partner."

"Okay," Danny sighed wearily as he hopped out of the chopper and followed the two medics into the building. "Thanks guys."

Not even five minutes later José had guided Williams into a small, air-conditioned waiting room at the end of a busy corridor with surprisingly comfortable looking seats and two or three vending machines opposite the door while Match had gone off to find out about McGarrett's whereabouts.

"Your partner's being treated in the ER right now, Dr. Pierson is the attending doctor," the red-haired medic said when he joined them only a moment later. "He will get to you as soon as there is any news."

Before Danny was able to answer, a high-pitched whistling filled the air and José's and Match's hands flew to their belts when both of their beepers angrily flared to life.

"Hey Danny, sorry, but we have to go," Match said quickly, giving Danny another slap on the shoulder before he turned around and followed his partner to the door. "We'll come by later if our time allows."

"Thanks for your help," Danny called after them, meaning it from the bottom of his heart. "Oh, and Sergeant Pepper?" Danny added with a bright smirk on his face. "I really like your name. Hope you never get promoted."

"And I hope it happens sooner rather than later," Match answered good-naturedly as he closed the door behind him.

Chuckling quietly for a short moment, Danny finally heaved a deep breath as he dropped down in one of the chairs. Closing his eyes he tiredly leaned his head against the wall and prepared himself for the unnerving wait that was doubtlessly lying ahead of him.

**(tbc)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8:**

Danny didn't know how many times he had looked on the display of his cell phone in the last few hours to check the time. All he knew was that time definitely ran much slower when you're waiting for something and that too much time had passed since Steve had been whisked away from that chopper.

Too much time that Danny had spent in this stupidly comfortable waiting room with too many cups of bad coffee from one of the vending machines and without a single word on Steve's state of health. More than once he had tried to get any information from one of the nurses outside on the corridor, but all he'd received was a sympathetic smile and the reassurance that Dr. Pierson would come and talk to him as soon as possible.

Waiting had gotten a little bit easier once Chin and Kono had joined him a while ago, but the more time passed without any news on his partner the more nervous and concerned Danny became. Vividly remembering the terrifying sight of Steve's convulsing body, he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to ban the disturbing image from his mind. Jumping from his seat when he couldn't stand the memory any longer, he started to pace the room in vigorous small steps but his slouched shoulders and the deep frown on his forehead easily gave away his real state of mind.

Feeling Chin's and Kono's concerned glances follow his every step Danny tried to pull himself together and dropped back down onto the seat next to Kono with a long tired sigh. Turning his head he flashed the young woman at his side a brief wry smile which she immediately answered by placing one of her slender hands onto his forearm.

"You alright, brah?" she asked tentatively as she rubbed her left hand soothingly over his arm.

Holding her gaze for a short moment he finally sadly shook his head. "Not really," Danny answered hoarsely, wrapping his fingers around Kono's hand and squeezing gently, grateful for any support and comfort she was offering. Looking down he noticed that her right hand was placed on Chin's forearm and that the cousins' fingers were intertwined in a quite similar way.

Consoling each other the three people sat in silence for a moment until Chin's calm voice suddenly filled the air. "We found him in time," he said quietly and Danny wanted nothing more than to believe every single word he said. "I'm sure Steve's gonna be alright."

"Let's hope so," Danny whispered into the silence, slowly nodding his head. "Let's hope so," he repeated with an almost inaudible sigh before he fell quiet again, tiredly staring out the window without really seeing a thing.

It was another agonizingly long twenty minutes later when the door finally opened and a young dark-haired doctor entered the room, briefly looking around before he made a beeline for the three waiting members of Five-0 who immediately leaped to their feet in a swift move.

"Detective Williams?" the doctor asked, already stretching out his hand to greet Danny.

"That's me," Danny confirmed unnecessarily, briefly wiping his sweaty palms on his pants before he shook hands with the man in front of him.

"I'm Doctor Owen Pierson, I was attending Commander McGarrett," the dark-haired man replied calmly, neither his voice nor his expression revealed if he was bringing good or bad news. "Why don't we sit back down while I inform you…"

"We prefer standing," Williams interrupted him not quite politely with a sharp movement of his hands, but at the moment he was just too tired and too restless to care about proper manners. "How's Steve?" he asked, desperately searching the doctor's face for any hint about his partner's condition.

Having dealt with enough worried relatives and friends before, Dr. Pierson easily recognized Danny's behavior as an expression of deep concern and so he only slightly raised his eyebrows about the little outburst. "Very well," he said, nodding his head in agreement. Taking a deep breath, he looked Danny straight in the eyes and explained slowly, "I wish I had better news but to be honest we are looking at a very unfortunate series of events that took place here." Tiredly running a hand through his short-cropped hair – Danny wondered briefly if everyone who worked in the huge Army hospital was forced to get such a military haircut – the doctor asked quietly, "I understand that the Commander had been trapped inside an airtight box for quite some time?"

Nodding almost in unison, Danny, Kono and Chin confirmed Dr. Pierson's question, clearly afraid of what the young doctor would tell them about their leader.

"The problem with being in an airtight room over a longer period of time is not the lack of oxygen that most people would think but rather the increase of carbon dioxide in the breathing air. The symptoms of carbon dioxide poisoning – or hypercapnia – depend on the amount of said gas in the air, starting with an increased heart and breathing rate, raised blood pressure, muscle twitches, extrasystoles and reduced neural activity. The higher the amount of carbon dioxide in the air becomes, the more severe the symptoms will get, and we're talking here about hallucinations, hyperventilation, convulsions, unconsciousness, and eventually a complete paralysis of the respiratory center and as a consequence death."

Dr. Pierson interrupted himself briefly to clear his throat before he slightly spread his arms and continued his explanations. "However, the good thing about hypercapnia is that once the concentration of carbon dioxide is reduced and pure oxygen is administered, the symptoms are reversible and the patient will normally start breathing on his own."

Staring wide-eyed at the young man in front of him, Danny tried to process what the doctor was trying to tell them. "Normally?" he asked hoarsely, sucking worriedly on his lower lip as he anxiously waited for an answer.

Breathing out a faint sigh, Dr. Pierson spread his arms again before he loosely intertwined his fingers in front of his body. "You have to understand that we are not only dealing with the aftereffects of carbon dioxide poisoning at the moment," he said quietly. "As I said before, we are looking at a very unfortunate series of events that took place here. I was told that Commander McGarrett was not breathing when you found him, so it's safe to assume that the concentration of carbon dioxide inside the box had already reached a critical level."

"But we immediately started Ambu bag ventilation as soon as we got him out of there," Kono interposed hesitantly, her voice wavering audibly as she squeezed her cousin's hand.

"And that was a good thing," Dr. Pierson replied, turning toward Kono with a reassuring smile on his lips. "I think it's safe to say that you most probably saved his life."

"Then what unfortunate series of events are you talking about, doc?" Chin asked, wrapping his fingers tightly around Kono's hand to provide as much support as possible.

Letting his gaze travel over the three people in front of him, Dr. Pierson suppressed another sigh. He really loved his job, he had dreamt of becoming a doctor since he was a child and even if he knew that bringing bad or painful news was part of his profession that surely didn't make it any easier.

"First of all we're talking about the two head wounds the Commander has sustained, one at the back of his head, the other one on his left temple," he said, briefly pointing his right hand at his own head to indicate the exact locations. "The CAT scan has revealed a small epidural bleeding but at the moment we're hopeful that no surgery will be required. However, any bleeding in the brain is always a cause for concern and we will monitor the progress very closely."

Danny heaved a deep sigh, running both of his hands over his hair before he stuffed them deep into his pockets. "What about the seizure?" he asked quietly. If he was honest, he wanted nothing more than to leave that damned hospital and forget everything about brain bleeding or seizures or hypercap… whatever that term was.

"The seizure was most probably an aftereffect of the heat inside the box," the doctor explained patiently. "Dehydration and excessive sweating cause electrolyte imbalance inside the body which can lead to cramps or seizures at the worst. We immediately administered fluids and electrolytes over the IV line, so we don't expect any further seizures."

"However, there is one other problem here," he continued before the three people in front of him had time to ask another question. "To deal with that seizure you witnessed while you were still in the chopper, the medics were forced to inject the Commander with a muscle relaxant which certainly helped with the seizure and was beyond all doubt the means of choice at that moment. But you have to understand that a muscle relaxant always depresses the breathing…"

His voice trailed off and he once more slightly spread his hands. There was a short moment of silence when all one could hear was the breathing of the four people in the room and the annoying hum of the vending machines at the opposite wall. Dr. Pierson blinked slowly before he locked eyes with Danny and said almost apologetically, "Unfortunately we were forced to intubate Commander McGarrett and put him on a ventilator."

Hearing the strangled gasp that escaped Kono's lips despite the desperate effort to hide her horror, Dr. Pierson raised his right hand in a reassuring gesture.

"That sounds worse than it actually is," he tried to soothe the clearly frightened people in front of him. "The Commander is already showing the first signs of spontaneous breathing and the intubation is more of a precautionary measure particularly with regard to the epidural bleeding. There will be more CAT scans later today and tonight and as soon as we're sure that the bleeding is retreating and the breathing is further improving, we will hopefully be able to extubate him either tomorrow morning or even later this evening."

Heaving a deep sigh, Danny threw a quick look at his two teammates before he turned his attention back to the young doctor. "Can we see him?" he asked hesitantly, not sure if he really wanted to see his partner lying in a hospital bed with a tube shoved down his throat and whatever medical equipment attached to his body.

"He's still in ICU and I'm afraid I can only allow one visitor at a time," Dr. Pierson answered; his voice friendly but at the same time leaving no room for discussion. Throwing a quick look at his watch he said, "I'm sorry, but I have to go. Just talk to one of the nurses and they will get you to Commander McGarrett's room. If you have any questions, feel free to come to me any time."

"Thanks, doc," Chin said, while Kono and Danny merely nodded their heads.

Dr. Pierson threw them a last sympathetic smile before he turned around and left the small waiting room. As soon as the door closed behind him, Williams took a step back and dropped down onto the row of seats, hissing out a long breath between his teeth. He tiredly rubbed his hands over his face before he looked up at his two friends who still stood silently in the middle of the room.

"Who wants to go in first?" Danny asked as he exhaustedly leaned his head against the wall, his gaze travelling from Kono to Chin and back.

"You go in first," Kono replied immediately, slightly shaking her head about that clearly rhetorical question.

"Yes, brah, absolutely," Kelly confirmed his agreement with his cousin before Danny had the chance to say a word.

Flashing them a small smile, Danny weakly waved his hands through the air. "Thanks guys, I really appreciate your offer," he said as he struggled back to his feet. "But I think first I need a little bit of fresh air before I can go in there. I just need… I mean… one of you can go in first, okay?" he stammered, pinching the bridge of his nose to get rid of the slight headache that started to grow behind his eyes.

"You sure about that?" Kono asked, exchanging worried looks with her cousin when she noticed the deep lines of exhaustion on Danny's face.

Clearing his throat, Danny blinked slowly as he nodded at her in silent agreement, not sure if he could trust his voice right now.

"Okay, listen, how about this?" Chin suggested after another moment of strained silence. "Kono and I will look after Steve for a few minutes each and then you can go in while we head back to the office and see if we can find out more about Claire Sacotte and her son Roger and their connection to Steve." Turning his head to look at his cousin, Chin asked softly, "You okay with that, cuz?"

Giving Chin a small smile, Kono nodded once before she said to Danny, "Give us a call if anything changes, okay?" Stepping forward she wrapped her arms around Danny's body and pulled him into a brief hug. "Take good care of the boss," she whispered hoarsely before she swiftly turned around and left the room before anyone could notice the tears that welled in her eyes.

"Is she alright?" Danny asked, blinking back his own tears when he looked at Chin.

"Yeah, I think so," the older man answered with a sad smile. "Make sure to call, okay?" he repeated Kono's request as he placed his right hand on Danny's shoulder. "And take care of yourself, Danny. You look like hell."

"Well, that's hardly surprising, is it?" Danny snorted tiredly. "First I was forced to go hiking and then I had to fly in a huge Army helicopter – that's perhaps McGarrett's idea of a calm and relaxing day but surely not mine."

"I know what you mean," Chin chuckled, giving Danny's shoulder a slight squeeze before he removed his hand. "See you later," he said before he also headed toward the door.

"Hey Chin?" Danny called after him, waiting until his teammate turned around to face him. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, brah," Chin answered quietly and a moment later he closed the door behind him, leaving Danny alone in the small waiting room.

* * *

Danny heaved a deep sigh and rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to relax his strained muscles as he threw a look out of the window. The huge parking lot in front of the hospital building was almost deserted at this time of the day, at almost ten o'clock in the evening most of the visitors had long gone home, granting their loved ones their deserved night's sleep.

Stifling a yawn as he tiredly rubbed his hands over his face Danny finally turned around and stepped closer to the bed. He still wasn't used to the sight of his unconscious partner, and even if Steve was no longer attached to a ventilator, all his other injuries were enough to make Danny wince. Another CAT scan about an hour ago had revealed that the epidural bleeding was not growing and because Steve had shown more and more signs of spontaneous breathing, Dr. Pierson had decided to remove the breathing tube earlier than initially intended and to move Steve out of the ICU into a private room.

Forcing himself to take stock of Steve's injuries, Danny swallowed the rising nausea and hesitantly took another step, coming to a halt directly next to Steve's bed. The wound on Steve's left temple had been cleaned and stitched up, but the skin around the wound was red and swollen, the swelling spreading out to his left eye and down over his cheekbone, most of it covered by the breathing mask that fogged regularly in sync with Steve's breathing. A white patch apparently covered the wound on the back of Steve's head, but all that Danny could see of it was a small stripe of white fabric behind Steve's right ear.

Danny puffed out a disgusted breath when his gaze fell on the slightly inflamed abrasions around Steve's wrists and he was sure that the same kind of injury could be seen on his partner's ankles. The two pieces of thin red rope they'd found inside the small metal box were solid evidence that Steve had not only been locked inside the box but that he had also been tied up.

McGarrett's broken right wrist was splinted; luckily it had been a clean fracture that didn't require any surgery. The raw and bloody fingertips had also been cleaned, the worst of the wounds additionally covered with white plasters.

An IV line snaked its way into Steve's arm, and whatever clear fluid the nurse had administered to Steve's bloodstream only minutes ago, it obviously helped a lot to improve his state. Danny noticed that his partner's complexion was no longer sickly gray and the lines of pain and discomfort on his forehead seemed to ease with each passing second.

Thinking about the woman that in all probability was responsible for Steve's current condition, Danny shook his head in disgust. Sure, on the one hand he felt sorry for Claire Sacotte; she was dead and he was sure that she had a lot of bad problems of her own, because only the most desperate person would have been capable of what she had done, shooting herself in cold blood in front of three police officers. But on the other hand Danny was just utterly angry, all the problems in the world didn't justify locking up an innocent person inside a tiny, airtight box, even more so if said person was his partner.

"What have you gotten yourself into, my friend?" Danny asked into the silent room. "I mean, I can understand that someone is pissed off by your behavior, but what's happened today is really bad, even by your standards." Staring at the unconscious man for another moment, Danny sighed again before he started to pace the room in slow, tired steps. "What have you done to that woman, Steven? Why the hell was she so angry at you? I mean, she wanted to see you dead and look at you now, she almost succeeded…" Trying to swallow down the emotions that bubbled up in him, Danny repeated in a pained whisper, "She almost succeeded."

Bonelessly dropping down into the chair right next to Steve's bed, Danny stifled another yawn as he tried to find a comfortable position. Every single muscle in his body hurt and he wasn't sure if it was from the exhausting hike through the jungle in the blazing summer heat or plainly and simply from all the emotional stress he'd endured during the last few hours. Folding his arms in front of his chest he snuggled deeper into the seat, his gaze fixed on the steady up and down of Steve's chest.

The dim twilight and the quiet of the room in combination with Steve's soft and regular breathing created a soothing atmosphere and before Danny registered what happened his eyelids drooped, his chin sank to his chest and only a moment later he was lulled to sleep – only to be startled awake by a strangled gasp a mere minute later.

**(tbc)**


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews, for the favorites and alerts. I'm really, really sorry that I didn't manage to answer all of you personally but my last few days were... well, let's just say they were not so good. I was sick the whole week, caught a nasty flu somewhere, and to crown it all, on Friday evening, I had to make the decision to let my old horse go. And even if it was the right decision I'm still terribly sad :-(

I hope your weekend was better than mine, enjoy the next chapter...

* * *

**Chapter 9:**

The blackness pressed heavily against Steve's mind, a thick and suffocating cover that stubbornly refused to retreat. Only here and there a faint shimmer of light pierced the darkness and Steve instinctively headed toward that light, sluggishly fighting his way back to consciousness.

For a short moment he had absolutely no idea what had happened and the first thing he perceived was something heavy pressing against his face. A surge of panic immediately flooded his dazed mind when all his memories came back with a vengeance, the heat inside the box, the claustrophobic darkness and most of all the inability to draw a proper breath.

Feeling his throat constricting painfully, Steve weakly thrashed around as he shakily gasped for breath. Cool air streamed down his airways but the only thing he was really aware of was that something was covering his mouth and nose. Taking in another gulp of air, he tried to raise his arms to remove the weight from his face, but his right hand felt as it weighed at least a ton and his left hand was caught somewhere in mid-air, making it impossible to finish its intended task. A new wave of panic rolled over him and McGarrett tried desperately to free his hand as he drew in another strangled breath.

"Whoa Steve, easy," a familiar voice penetrated his troubled mind. "Everything's alright. You hear me? Everything's alright, Steve. You're in the hospital, just try to take slow breaths, okay buddy?"

Steve heard the words but he had trouble catching their meaning through the pounding headache that increased with every beat of his heart. Sucking in another breath of air, he felt strong fingers wrap around his left hand. Curling his own fingers in return, he squeezed tightly, hanging on for dear life as if that grip was his only lifeline to consciousness.

"Steve? Can you hear me?" the voice asked, concern now clearly coloring the words. "Slow breaths, okay? Come on, Steven, I know you can do that."

Furrowing his brow in concentration, Steve tried to obey, but there was still that thing pressing against his face, slowly suffocating him, giving him the feeling that he couldn't draw a proper breath and once more he tried to raise his hand to clear his airways.

"No, no, no, Steve, leave the mask where it is," the voice said half-annoyed and half-scared and suddenly Steve knew whom that voice belonged to.

"Danny," he tried to say, but all that came out was a muffled and scratchy rattle deep in his throat. Taking in another shaky gulp of air McGarrett startled when he felt someone firmly grab his shoulders and an unfamiliar voice reached his ears.

"Commander McGarrett? Can you hear me? I'm Dr. Pierson; I'm your attending doctor. Commander McGarrett? Everything's alright, but I need you to slow down your breathing, do you understand me?"

The pain in his head and the need to get enough air into his lungs was washing away every other sensation and after a few more tormented breaths Steve struggled weakly to free his left hand out of Danny's grip.

"I think the mask is bothering him," Steve heard Danny's concerned voice, barely loud enough to drown out the rushing of blood in his ears.

"Commander McGarrett?" The grip on his shoulders briefly tightened. "Try to take slow, deep breaths. There's enough air, everything's alright." There was a short pause and then, finally, the weight was removed from his face and Steve almost sobbed in relief when the claustrophobic feeling slowly disappeared. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, and with each breath the dark cloud around his mind seemed to shrink more and more, leaving behind a dull, throbbing pressure behind his eyes.

"That's it, buddy, nice and easy," Danny's voice penetrated the silence and Steve felt the grip around his left hand tighten.

"Commander McGarrett, can you hear me?" the second voice – Dr. Pierson? – said. "Can you open your eyes?"

Swallowing laboriously, McGarrett furrowed his brow as he put all his remaining strength into the simple task to open his eyes but his eyelids only fluttered ever so slightly.

"Steve? Come on, man, open your eyes," Danny said, giving his hand another squeeze.

Exhaustedly squeezing back, Steve run his tongue over his cracked lips and after another deep breath he finally managed to blink open his eyes. A new bolt of pain raced through his skull when the blinding light of the room was torturing him and he immediately squeezed his eyes shut with a piteous whimper. He swallowed feverishly against the taste of bile at the back of his throat.

"I'm sorry about the light, Commander, but it's already dimmed as much as possible," Dr. Pierson's calm voice sliced through Steve's pain-filled consciousness. "I know that it will be uncomfortable but I need to check your pupils, okay?"

Before Steve could form a fitting answer in his mind let alone voice his objection, he felt how someone lifted first his right then his left eyelid and a small flashlight was waved in front of his eyes sending an almost unbearable wave of pain through his brain. Despite the fact that he squeezed Danny's hand so firmly that he wouldn't be surprised if some bones were cracking, Steve couldn't prevent the agonizing moan that tore from his throat. He broke out in a cold sweat and his whole body was trembling slightly in an attempt to fight back the rising nausea.

"Is that really necessary?" Danny asked angrily into the silence, holding their grasp with equal force.

"Unfortunately it is necessary, yes," Dr. Pierson answered patiently. "I need to make sure that the epidural bleeding didn't do any damage to his brain before I can administer any pain medication."

Once more Steve felt a hand on his shoulder as he tried to pull himself together. "Just a few short questions, then I'll give you some painkillers and you can go back to sleep, okay?" the doctor said sympathetically, waiting for Steve's almost invisible nod, before he asked his first question. "Can you tell me your full name and rank?"

"Steven J. McGarrett… Lieutenant Commander," Steve whispered hoarsely, briefly wondering why on earth the doctor wanted to know his rank.

"Do you know where you are?"

Breathing harshly against a new wave of nausea, Steve silently cursed the doctor and his stupid questions. "Hospital," he rasped when a sudden thought raced through his mind. "Tripler?" he added exhaustedly, once again licking his dry lips.

"How do you know?" Dr. Pierson asked in surprise, not able to choke back the question.

"Military hospital," Steve explained clipped, squeezing his eyes shut more tightly when the jackhammer in his head started another attack near his left temple. "Asked for rank."

He could hear Danny silently chuckle in the background, probably exchanging an amused look with the doctor.

"That's right, Commander, you're at Tripler," the doctor cheerfully confirmed his assumption. "One last question… Do you know what day it is?"

Furrowing his brow in concentration, Steve desperately tried to collect his muddled thoughts. "Tuesday?" he asked hesitantly after a long moment of silence, not really bothering if he was right or not. All he wanted to do at the moment was go back to sleep and get rid of the agonizing headache and the nausea.

"That's correct, well done," Dr. Pierson said, giving Steve's shoulder one last squeeze before he removed his hand. "I'm giving you something for the pain and then I want to put you back on oxygen, but don't worry," he said quickly when he noticed the hint of horror on McGarrett's face. "I'll replace the breathing mask with a nasal cannula, okay?"

"'kay," Steve slurred, already feeling his body grow heavy. Whatever Dr. Pierson had given him it seemed to work really fast and a comfortable sleepiness wound itself around his mind, taking away at least a bit of the excruciating pain in his head. He was just about to give in to the pull of sleep when he suddenly remembered one important thing he needed to tell his partner.

"Danny?" he managed weakly, fighting with all his strength to stay awake for another moment.

"I'm here," Williams replied immediately, slightly squeezing his hand to confirm his presence. "Everything's alright, go back to sleep, Steven."

Faintly shaking his head, Steve breathed out a little sigh before he whispered urgently, "Woman… Danny, it was a woman." He swallowed forcefully, contorting his face with concentration. "She said… her name… Claire?" Steve exhaled faintly with his last strength, not able to fight the effects of the medication any longer.

"Don't worry, partner, we already got her," Danny reassured him. "And now stop prattling and go to sleep, you moron, we'll talk tomorrow."

* * *

Steve could feel rays of sunlight on his face, involuntarily turning his head a little bit to the right to catch the comfortable warmth. The unbearable headache from before was reduced to a dull pressure behind his left eye, his whole body was stiff and aching but other than that he felt surprisingly well rested.

Taking a deep breath he tentatively opened his eyes, slowly blinking a few times to bring his surroundings into focus. The pressure in his head increased to a dull throbbing when the bright sunlight stung in his eyes but the pain was nothing compared to the blinding agony he remembered from the last time he had been awake.

Lazily looking around, his eyes finally came to rest on his partner who was sitting on a chair on the left side of his bed, throwing him an expectant look out of tired blue eyes while he absently stirred the cup of coffee he balanced on his lap.

Swallowing against the stale taste in his mouth, McGarrett licked his dry lips before he took another deep breath. "Hey," he rasped, laboriously clearing his throat.

"Hey," Danny replied as he slowly stood up and drew closer to the bed. "How are you feeling?" he asked, involuntarily grimacing in disgust when he took a small sip of his coffee.

"Better," Steve answered in a hoarse whisper, coughing slightly to get rid of the raw feeling in his throat. "How long was I out?" he asked as he let his gaze travel through the room, shifting his weight a little bit to bring his body in a more comfortable position before he raised his left hand and awkwardly reached for the glass of water on the bedstand.

Watching his partner's attempts for a short moment, the initially curious expression on Danny's face quickly turned into a half-amused and half-annoyed snort. With a small sigh he put away his coffee before he pressed the button to raise the bed while he simultaneously handed Steve the glass of water. "You can't just ask for help, you pighead, can you?" he asked with a slight shake of his head, rolling his eyes at Steve's sheepish grin.

"Thanks," McGarrett said after he'd taken a few small sips of the water, briefly closing his eyes when the cold fluid was soothing the scratchiness in his throat. Handing the half-empty glass back to Danny, Steve closely examined his splinted wrist and his raw fingertips, then he cautiously touched the wound on his left temple, briefly contorting his face when he felt the multitude of stitches.

"So, how long was I out?" he asked again, locking eyes with his partner who still stood unnaturally quietly at his bedside. "What's happened anyway?" Eyeballing Danny's unique choice of clothes he added with a goofy smirk, "And what about that very unprofessional outfit of yours?"

Staring at his friend for a long moment, Danny slowly raised his eyebrows before he heaved a deep sigh and started to agitatedly wave his hands through the air. "Unprofessional outfit?" he replied, looking down at his washed-out jeans and his brown trekking boots that were still covered with splatters of dried mud. "Okay, first of all, Steven, let me tell you that my _unprofessional outfit_ was good enough to save your sorry ass, so no more words about my clothes, okay?" Danny said, but his words held no real energy.

Hearing the exhausted undertone in the smaller man's voice, Steve took a closer look and finally noticed the deep lines of fatigue on Danny's face, his tense posture and his crumpled appearance. "Sorry man, I didn't mean…" he started hesitantly only to be interrupted by a sharp movement of Danny's hands.

"For your other questions," Williams went on without dwelling on Steve's apology, "I'm only able to answer one of them." Briefly sucking on his lower lip he started to explain, "Well, you dropped off our radar more than 24 hours ago, probably sometime before seven o'clock yesterday morning. We found you about four hours later…" Danny interrupted himself when the unwelcome image of his unconscious partner locked up in a tiny metal box flashed through his mind. Shoving back the disturbing memory, he ran both of his hands over his hair as he continued, "You were briefly awake yesterday evening and now you've slept for the last twelve hours. It's almost nine o'clock in the morning now."

Shaking his head as he stared at his partner, McGarrett blinked a few times, pondering on Danny's explanation. "Yesterday?" he muttered slowly, the amount of time that had passed without him knowing actually confused him a little bit and the events of the previous day were hazy at the best. A few memories sluggishly resurfaced when he threw another look at Danny's mud covered boots and he asked almost timidly, "Have you been here the whole time?"

Looking at Steve as if his partner had finally completely lost his mind, Danny replied quietly, "Where else would I have been, Steven?" He sighed tiredly when a bit of the tension fled his body now that Steve was awake and alert. "Where else would I have been?"

"Thanks man," Steve whispered solemnly, immensely grateful for the support even if he didn't remember a single second of Danny's night-time vigil.

"Don't mention it," Danny replied with a dismissive wave of his hands. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Both men stared at each other in silence for a long moment, until Steve awkwardly cleared his throat. "Are you mad at me?" he asked tentatively, unable to read the strange expression on his partner's face.

Taking a deep breath, Williams shook his head as he exhaustedly dropped back onto the chair at Steve's bedside "I'm not mad, I just wonder why we always end up in situations like that," he said as he raised his hands but the gesture completely lacked its usual energy. "It seems that lately we spend more time in the hospital than anywhere else. I mean, look at you, all those injuries, that's just not right…" Danny's voice trailed off and he heaved a tired sigh. Absently scraping off a small mud stain on his jeans a sneaky smile slowly crept across his lips and when he finally looked up, Steve could see the usual sparkling in his partner's bright blue eyes. "In a perfect world, none of us would get injured, but if it has to be the case – and don't get me wrong here, Steve – I prefer that you're the one in the hospital bed and not me."

"Glad that I could be of service, Danno," McGarrett replied sarcastically, but he was not able to completely choke back the chuckle that had built up in his chest. Despite the pounding headache and the slight feeling of dizziness it felt damn good to joke around with his partner.

He was interrupted by a quiet creak and both men turned their heads just in time to see Kono stick her head in at the door. A bright smile colored her features when she noticed that Steve was alert and sitting up.

"Hey boss, good to see you awake," she said cheerfully, quickly covering the few steps distance toward Steve's bed. Bending down, she gave him a quick hug and whispered hoarsely, "You look much better than the last time we saw you."

"She's right, brah," Chin said as he followed his cousin into the room, in passing handing Danny a small brown paper bag. "We brought you breakfast," he whispered with a wink at the Jersey cop before he turned toward Steve and gave him a gentle slap on the shoulder. "You alright?"

"Yeah man. Just a nasty headache," Steve nodded with a genuine smile, his gaze unsteadily flickering between Kono and Chin. "Thanks for coming."

"So," Steve said after a moment of silence when the only sound in the room was the soft rustling of the paper bag on Danny's lap. He sat up straighter, careful not to pull out the IV line that was attached to his right arm as he clumsily arranged the sheets around his body. "My memory is a bit holey at the moment," he admitted with a sheepish smile as he tried to fight the lingering dizziness. "Can anyone tell me what's happened?"

"Well babe, we actually hoped that you could tell us that story," Danny said muffled, happily chewing on a still warm malasada as he threw his partner an expectant look. Furrowing his brow when he took in Steve's appearance he asked worriedly, "You sure you're alright? You look a little pale. We could talk later, you know."

"I'm good," Steve retorted in typical McGarrett fashion, waving the other man to go on.

Danny held his look for a short moment before he slightly shrugged his shoulders and gulped down the last bit of his malasada. Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth he stood up from the chair and placed the bag with the remaining pastries onto Steve's bedstand with a funny little sigh. "Alright. We found your car at the parking place at the beginning of that trail with the stupid name that no one whose brain cells are correctly lined up could ever remember," Danny started, waving his hands through the air before he gestured toward Steve. "Why don't you start with what happened after you drove there," he suggested as he folded his arms in front of his chest.

Steve blinked owlishly as he stared at his friend, with the throbbing pain inside his head it took even more time than usual to make sense of Danny's words.

"He means Wa`ahila Ridge Trail," Kono tossed in helpfully when she noticed the increasing confusion on Steve's face.

"I always knew that your brain is a bit jolted, Kalakaua," Danny remarked with an impish twinkle in his eyes. "Probably from all that crazy surfing in your youth."

Glaring at Danny in feigned anger, the young woman stuck her tongue out and playfully punched him on the arm.

"Children, behave," Chin said good-naturedly, slightly shaking his head at the childish behavior of his two teammates before he turned toward McGarrett. "Go on, at least I would like to hear what you remember."

"Uhm, alright," Steve started, briefly squeezing his eyes shut as he rubbed his left hand over his face. The dizziness had slightly increased in the last few moments and he blinked a few times to get rid of the gray mist in front of his eyes. "I think I arrived at the parking lot a few minutes past six," he said slowly, furrowing his brow when he tried to recall the events of the previous day.

"Crazy freak," Danny murmured under his breath at the mention of the time, but he quickly fell quiet when his partner continued his explanations.

"All was quiet when I started my run but then maybe ten, fifteen minutes later I heard a woman crying." Letting his gaze travel through the room as he tried to gather his thoughts, Steve breathed out a weary sigh. Maybe Danny was right and it was better if they postponed their conversation but his friends deserved to know what had happened – the least he could do was tell them what he remembered before he went back to sleep. "She said she needed help… something about a child… her nephew?" Pinching the bridge of his nose he slightly shook his head. "I'm not sure what happened next… it's actually kind of embarrassing but I think she… she knocked me down," he said, his voice held an almost surprised tone as he involuntarily rubbed the back of his head.

"Well, SEALs are only human, aren't they," Danny tossed in succinctly but he swallowed any further comments when he felt Kono's elbow threateningly nudge into his ribs.

"After that, everything's a bit hazy…" Steve said as he stared at the white wall opposite his bed without really seeing a thing. "I think I regained consciousness a little bit later but then she tasered me and the next thing I remember is waking up inside a tiny metal box."

Squeezing his eyes shut, McGarrett took a deep breath when his breathing rate involuntarily increased as he thought back to that horrible time inside the box. "I tried to open the lid," he rasped, opening his eyes to look at his friends. "But there was no starting point, nothing to grasp, nothing at all where I could have started."

"It was sealed from the outside," Kono nodded, placing her hand on Steve's left forearm when she noticed his rising distress.

"You would probably never have succeeded," Danny added, locking eyes with his partner. "We needed almost twenty minutes to open the box and there were three of us and we had tools."

"Lots of tools," Kono smirked with a brief side glance at Danny.

"They came in handy, didn't they?" Williams replied with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

"Steve," Chin raised his voice before Danny and Kono started another round of banter. "Do you know the woman who did this to you? Did she say something? Anything at all about her motives? Why she'd chosen you?"

Furrowing his brow, Steve rubbed his left hand over his forehead to keep the increasing headache at bay. He rapidly blinked a few times as he tried to remember any more details about the strange woman.

"Claire…" he murmured quietly. "She said her name was Claire. She looked somewhat familiar but I'm not sure…" His voice trailed off with a little sigh before he continued with a shake of his head. "She said she wanted me to suffer and then maybe something about her son?" he asked hesitantly, the fingers of his left hand gloomily twiddling with the white sheets. He took another deep breath and finally looked up at his teammates out of glazed eyes, "Sorry, I really can't remember anything else."

There was a short moment of silence when Steve experienced a new bout of dizziness, causing him to lean his head back onto the pillow. He seemed to melt into the sheets and he blinked tiredly against the sudden wave of fatigue that rolled over him. It was suddenly becoming incredibly difficult to keep his eyes open and he felt his body grow numb and heavy.

"Hey, you alright?" Danny asked worriedly, stepping closer to the bed and placing a hand on Steve's shoulder.

"Don't know…" Steve replied hoarsely. The room around him started to spin in racing speed and the increasing pressure inside his head made it almost impossible to think straight. "Dizzy… headache…" he croaked out, squeezing his eyes shut in hopes of fighting back the dizziness.

Feeling Danny's squeeze on his shoulder McGarrett tried to concentrate on the steady touch but he was no longer able to push back the agonizing pain in his skull far enough to open his eyes. Blood was rushing in his ears, drowning out almost every other sound. He faintly heard voices and somewhere deep in his muddled brain he knew that his friends were talking to him and that they probably expected him to answer.

White dots flashed through his slipping consciousness, the pressure behind his eyes increasing with every beat of his heart until Steve was sure that his head was ready to explode at any moment and with a relieved sigh he finally gave in to the darkness that filled his mind.

**(tbc)**

* * *

Sorry about that but the muse insisted on a little bit more whump ;-)**  
**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10:**

"Sorry, I really can't remember anything else," Steve said exhaustedly as he threw his teammates a look out of tired, glazed eyes.

Noticing the lines of fatigue on his partner's face, Danny was just about to repeat his earlier suggestion that they could easily postpone their conversation when Steve suddenly breathed out a faint moan and leaned his head back onto the pillow. Danny watched with growing concern how Steve's already pale complexion became ghastly white and his eyes seemed to lose all their focus. His eyelids started to droop and he only blinked sluggishly when Danny called his name.

"Hey, you alright?" Williams wanted to know as he stepped closer to the bed and placed a hand on Steve's shoulder.

"Don't know…"

Steve's answer was slurred and barely audible, he seemed to have trouble forming the correct words.

"Dizzy… headache…" he added in a hoarse whisper, his face contorting with pain as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Steve? What's wrong?" Danny asked worriedly, gently shaking Steve's shoulder. "Steven? Hey man, come on, answer me. Can you hear me? Steve?"

Tightening his grip on Steve's shoulder Danny tried to rouse his partner but the only answer he got was a weak sigh and then Steve's body went slack, but the lines of pain on his face stayed when his head rolled limply to the left.

"Oh shit," Danny exclaimed, forcefully shaking Steve's shoulder. "Steve? Can you hear me?" Briefly turning his head toward his two teammates he ordered anxiously, "Call a doctor, hurry up. He's not responding."

Immediately returning his attention back to his unconscious partner, Danny ignored the hectic activity around him when Chin pressed the emergency button and Kono raced outside to call for help. The next few seconds seemed to stretch to eternity when Danny could do nothing else but helplessly stare down at Steve's pale face and call his name over and over again.

He breathed out a shaky sigh when finally the door burst open and a bunch of people hurried in but the tiny touch of relief soon turned into a mixture of annoyance and panic when he, Chin and Kono were forcefully kicked out as soon as Dr. Pierson had entered the room.

"I need you to leave immediately," the young doctor's voice was stern and relentless, but his eyes showed a great deal of sympathy. "Please! We need space to work," he explained quickly as he noticed the concerned expression on the faces of his patient's friends. "I'll inform you as soon as I know what's wrong with the Commander."

And before Danny could utter his objections he found himself in the corridor outside of Steve's room, pacing agitatedly in front of the closed door.

"What the hell just happened there?" he asked hoarsely, thinking sarcastically that this question seemed to be the only one he asked lately. Nervously running his hands over his hair he threw his teammates a fearful look. "He was alright when he talked to us, wasn't he? He… I mean… damn," Williams exclaimed, clenching and unclenching his fists as he stared into Chin's and Kono's equally worried faces.

"I don't know what's happened, brah," Chin answered quietly, shaking his head as he stared at the closed door to Steve's room. Taking a deep breath he wrapped his left arm around Kono's shoulders and at the same time grabbed Danny's upper arm with his free hand. "All I know is that it won't help Steve if we're hanging out here in front of his room, blocking the whole corridor while we're waiting." He slowly took a few steps, forcing his teammates to come with him. "Come on, let's go to the waiting room and have some coffee," Chin suggested, as always the voice of reason in the team.

"But…" Danny started, waving his free arm toward Steve's room.

"Dr. Pierson will know where we are," Kelly interrupted Danny's objection, gently shoving the younger man in front of him toward the waiting room at the end of the corridor. "He'll find us and he promised to inform us as soon as he knows what's going on."

"Chin's right, brah," Kono threw in softly, wiggling herself free out of her cousin's embrace and placing her hand on Danny's shoulder. "Let's sit down somewhere more comfortable."

Seeing the sympathy and fear in Kono's dark eyes, Danny nodded weakly in agreement when he felt all his remaining energy fleeing his body, leaving him empty and a bit shaky on his legs.

Silently the three friends made their way to the familiar waiting room, silently they sat down in the much too comfortable chairs, silently they stirred their cups of coffee, only now and then taking a small sip – and silently they waited.

They waited without a word on Steve's condition and despite the worry for his partner, Danny's exhaustion slowly gained the upper hand and he dozed off a few times. The cousins tried to make his surroundings as comfortable as possible, knowing that spending the night in a chair at your friend's hospital bed didn't allow a healthy portion of sleep. But no matter what they did, Danny always jerked awake a few minutes later, pressing his palms against his red-rimmed eyes before he ran his hands through his tousled hair, sitting up straight and staring silently at the white walls.

And then, finally, almost two full hours later, the door opened and an exhausted looking Dr. Pierson entered the room, making a beeline for the three waiting people. Much the same as the day before Danny, Chin and Kono immediately jumped to their feet, anxiously expecting the news about their leader.

"Sit down, please," the young dark-haired doctor said tiredly, this time allowing no contradiction as he plopped down in a chair face-to-face with his patient's friends. Resting his elbows on his knees he clasped his hands, bending forward slightly as he started to talk. "Okay, first of all, Commander McGarrett is stable at the moment, but nevertheless we moved him back to ICU, mainly for the purpose of continuous monitoring."

"Is he back on the ventilator?" Kono asked timidly; not able to ban the deep concern for her boss out of her voice.

"No," Dr. Pierson replied swiftly with a brief shake of his head. "His breathing is no longer a cause for concern, the only thing that we're worrying about at the moment is the intracranial injury."

"But I thought…" Danny stammered, blinking in confusion as he cleared his throat. "You said yesterday evening the bleeding was under control. I don't understand…"

"That's correct, the CAT scans from tonight indeed showed that the epidural bleeding was not growing," the doctor said, breathing out small sigh as he unfolded his fingers and locked eyes with Danny. "Unfortunately the latest scans – which had been scheduled for this morning anyway – showed an unexpected complication. Next to the bleeding, a cerebral edema had developed which had led to a dangerous increase of the intracranial pressure. At the moment we're trying to reduce the edema by keeping Commander McGarrett's blood pressure as low as possible, for example by administering diuretics to increase the excretion of water from the body."

"Is he still unconscious?" Chin asked quietly when Dr. Pierson paused for a short moment and leaned back in his chair.

"He's sedated at the moment," the doctor answered, briefly shifting his gaze to Chin before he looked back at Danny. "The sedation reduces the metabolic needs and as a result the cranial blood flow and therefore the intracranial pressure," he explained patiently. "Plus, I don't want him to experience any kind of agitation, that's why I also cannot allow any visitors for the next few hours."

Sensing the growing displeasure of his audience, Dr. Pierson raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I know you all want to be at his side and normally I absolutely encourage that kind of support for my patients but you have to understand the seriousness of the current situation." He interrupted himself and let his gaze travel over the three people in front of him until he was sure that he had their fullest attention. Throwing a brief glance at his watch he explained, "It's almost noon now and we hope that later this afternoon we'll be already seeing the first signs of improvement and we'll be able to cut back the medication as well as the sedation." He made another short pause and when he continued after having breathed out a tired little sigh his voice was soft and sympathetic, "However, if there is no improvement by tomorrow morning we have no other choice but to relieve the intracranial pressure by performing a craniotomy."

"Craniotomy," Danny repeated hesitantly, furrowing his brow in a mixture of confusion and horror. "That means you…" His voice trailed off mid-sentence when he stared wide-eyed at the young doctor.

"We will drill a small hole in his skull to relieve the pressure from the brain," Dr. Pierson answered straightforwardly, grimacing in sympathy when he noticed the expression of terror on Danny's, Chin's and Kono's faces. "Sorry, but there's really no way to sugarcoat the procedure. But I'm sure you understand now why we're doing everything within our power to avoid surgery."

"Yes doc, we do," Chin answered as he wrapped his arm once more around his cousin's slender shoulders.

"Good," Dr. Pierson answered contentedly, "that's good." Slowly standing up from his chair he threw another look at his watch. "There's nothing you can do here at the moment, so I suggest you all go home for a few hours and get some rest." Frowning at the lines of exhaustion on Danny's face, he watched closely how the other man struggled to get up, swiftly grabbing Danny's upper arm when the cop swayed dangerously on his feet. "And that goes for you too, Detective," the doctor growled angrily, keeping his grip around the smaller man's bicep until he was sure that Danny was steady on his legs.

"He's right, brah," Chin's calm voice filled the silence of the room. He placed a hand on Danny's shoulder and squeezed gently. "You aren't much use to Steve if you're collapsing of exhaustion."

"Go home, Danny," Kono chimed in with a little nod of her head. "We'll hold the fort until you come back."

"Excuse me, but didn't I just say I want you all to go home?" Dr. Pierson asked, shaking his head in disbelief about the open display of mutiny in front of him.

"If you want him to go home," Chin replied matter-of-factly, briefly pointing his thumb first at Danny, then at Kono and himself, "at least one of us stays."

"Yes doc," Kono added, flashing a bright, seductive smile at the young doctor. "He goes, we stay."

Seeing the absolute determination on the faces in front of him, Dr. Pierson raised his hands in defeat. "Alright, you two can stay," he sighed indulgently with a look at Kono and Chin before he turned toward Danny. "But I want you to go home, take a shower, change your clothes, eat something and get at least four hours of undisturbed sleep. Is that understood?"

"Yes doc," Kono repeated before Danny even had the chance to open his mouth.

"Good," the dark-haired doctor replied, satisfied for now that his orders would be obeyed.

"Hey, do I have a say in this, too?" Williams asked hoarsely, tiredly waving his hands through the air.

"No," Kono, Chin and Dr. Pierson exclaimed in unison.

"Oh," Danny said, slightly stunned at the forceful answer. "Okay." He blinked slowly, actually much too tired to come up with any kind of witty objection.

"We have fixed two more CAT scans for this afternoon, the first one at two o'clock, the second one at five o'clock," Dr. Pierson explained. "I don't want to see you back here before six o'clock, Detective. By then we should be able to tell if the medication had the desired effect and I promise you can visit the Commander no matter the outcome of the scans." He gave Danny's arm a gentle squeeze and nodded toward the door. "Six o'clock, Detective, not a minute earlier, okay? That should give you enough time to get a decent portion of sleep. You look like you can use it."

"I promise to go home, doc, but before I leave… can I… can I see Steve just for five minutes?" Danny pleaded softly. "Please?"

Staring down at the smaller man and seeing the genuine concern and fear in the pale blue eyes, Dr. Pierson took a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes. "Alright," he finally agreed quietly, answering Danny's question with a hesitant nod. "Five minutes – and then you go home. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal," Danny replied with a tired smile as he grabbed the doctor's outstretched hand and shook it firmly. "Thank you."

* * *

It was half past five when Danny pulled his silver Camaro into an empty parking space in front of Tripler Army Medical Center. He shut down the engine and stared at the huge hospital complex that towered above the city of Honolulu, surrounded by soft green hills. He stayed sitting in the car for a few more minutes, mentally preparing himself for whatever Dr. Pierson would soon tell him about Steve's condition.

The short visit to his partner's sick bed a few hours ago, before he had been forced to leave the hospital, had not really helped to calm his frayed nerves, but Danny had to admit that a bit of sleep, a decent meal, a nice long shower and a change of clothes had definitely done him good.

Taking a deep breath, Danny gave his reflection in the rear mirror an encouraging nod and exited the car. With forceful steps he walked into the hospital building, now and then throwing a short glance over his shoulder as he headed for the familiar waiting room. He had no intention of running into Dr. Pierson before six o'clock because he was sure the young doctor wouldn't be too enthusiastic if he saw him here earlier than agreed.

A few minutes later he had reached his destination and silently sneaked into the small waiting room, where Chin still sat in the same chair as the last time he'd seen him, absorbed in something he was reading on his tablet PC. Kono was lying on a row of chairs next to her cousin, curled up in fetal position and obviously sleeping soundly. Her cheek rested on her right hand, dark tousled hair covered most of her face and she was wrapped in a light blue blanket.

Softly closing the door behind him Williams sat down next to his teammates, careful not to wake up the young woman.

"Hey," he greeted quietly, immediately asking the most important question that was bothering him. "Any news on Steve?"

"No, nothing," Chin answered equally quietly, sadly shaking his head.

"Okay," Danny sighed frustrated, but it was almost six o'clock and he guessed that after all those hours of waiting twenty more minutes were only just bearable. His gaze fell on Chin's small computer and after noticing the names on the screen, he asked curiously, "What are you reading?"

"Claire and Roger Sacotte's files," Kelly answered, turning the display a little bit so that Danny had a better view of it. "Kono and I went through everything we could find yesterday evening, but to be honest there wasn't much we didn't already know."

He briefly looked up when Kono moved slightly in her sleep, lowering his voice even more when he continued his explanations, "Roger's Navy files were indeed all classified, all we can hope for is that Steve can shed light on some of the details."

"Well, maybe he **can**, but the question is, **will** he tell us something?" Danny mumbled with a wry smile.

Ignoring Danny's interruption, Chin swept his finger over the display of his tablet PC to activate another file. "We already knew that Claire was in psychiatric treatment from 2003 to 2011," he said, looking up at Danny who nodded affirmatively. "I spoke to her attending shrink but of course he was bound to his doctor-patient confidentiality and all he could tell me was that he indeed treated her for depressions after the death of her son and that she suddenly didn't show up any more for her sessions about a year ago. Obviously he hadn't seen her since." Putting the tablet PC on the empty chair next to him, Chin slightly shrugged his shoulders, "That's all we found."

Danny raised his eyebrows as he breathed out in a long quiet sigh. "That's not very helpful. I guess we really have to wait and see if Steve can tell us more about Roger and Claire."

The two men sat in silence for a short while until Chin finally threw a look at his watch and slowly stood up. "I promised to wake her before six o'clock," he said with a tender look at his cousin. Crouching down next to her head he gently placed a hand on her shoulder and asked calmly, "Kono?"

To Danny's immense amazement that one quiet word was enough to wake the young woman. Kono opened her eyes and blinked a few times as she gave Chin a small smile. Then she sat up in one swift move, smoothed down her top, forcefully shook her head and ran her slender fingers through her hair a few times until the dark strands lay perfectly around her head and she looked nothing at all as if she had been deeply asleep only moments ago.

"Hey," she said, flashing Danny a bright smile as she rolled her shoulders to relax her cramped muscles.

"Fascinating," Williams replied, raising one eyebrow to accentuate the famous Star Trek quote.

"What?" Kono asked as she stood up and walked across the room toward the vending machines at the opposite wall. "Do you want anything?"

"Women," Danny answered her first question while he totally ignored her second one. "I don't get it." He turned toward Chin and waved his hands through the air. "I really don't get it." He mimicked Kono's gestures, running his hands first down his shirt and then over his hair. "Just like that and they look perfect. Why do they spend ages in the bathroom when everything is totally fine after just two seconds?"

"I have absolutely no idea, brah," Chin replied with a laugh. "But if you find it out, let me know, okay?"

"I can give you that answer," Kono said as she sat down between her two teammates. She opened the can of coke she just bought and took a swig from it before she leaned back in her chair and gave the two men a conspiratorial wink. "That's because we're women," she whispered, chuckling about the slightly frustrated look on Danny's and Chin's faces.

Luckily Dr. Pierson's appearance – at exactly six o'clock to the minute – prevented any further discussion about the mystery that is woman and immediately the cheerful mood in the room made way for a tense and at the same time expectant atmosphere.

"I see you took my advice to heart, Detective," the doctor said as he sat down opposite the three people, nodding contentedly when he noticed Danny's still slightly damp hair and the change of clothes. "You look much better than a few hours ago."

"How's Steve?" Williams asked as friendly and patiently as possible, after all he wasn't here to discuss his own state of health.

"The latest CAT scan showed a slight regression of the edema," Dr. Pierson slowly explained his recent findings. "If the medication continues to operate as it did the last few hours then we're cautiously optimistic that Commander McGarrett won't need surgery." He quickly raised his hands when he noticed the happy smiles on the faces of his audience and said earnestly, "The medication is not working as efficiently as we hoped; these are just very small steps we're making at the moment. You have to understand that it's still too early to definitely tell if there will be surgery or not."

"But they are small steps in the right direction, right doc?" Kono asked, playing nervously with the half-empty can of coke in her hands.

"Yes, they are definitely steps in the right direction," the young doctor affirmed Kono's question. Clapping his hands, he let his gaze travel over the three people in front of him as he said with a soft smile, "If you have no more questions, I think your friend is ready for some visitors."

* * *

Danny stopped his nervous pacing and forced himself to stand still. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked the clock on the display for at least the hundredth time in the last few minutes.

Since Dr. Pierson had allowed only one visitor at a time, Danny had agreed that Kono and Chin went in first for a short visit just like the day before, giving Danny as much time as he wanted at his partner's side. Danny knew that this solution was probably the best for everyone but the longer he waited the more nervous and impatient he became.

At least he knew what to expect when he entered Steve's room, because he'd already seen all the different machines by Steve's bedside during his short visit a few hours ago. There would be the annoying beeping of the obligatory heart monitor but at least Steve was breathing on his own. Seeing someone you care for intubated and attached to a ventilator was one of the most disturbing things Danny had ever experienced and that meant a lot because being a homicide cop leads you to a lot of really ugly things. So, needless to say Danny was more than glad that there was no tube sticking out of his partner's mouth. However, there would be two IV lines snaking their way into both of Steve's arms, delivering the medication cocktail that kept him sedated and at the same time the required drugs to keep the blood pressure as low as possible.

A little bit further south there would be another small tube and Danny knew with absolute certainty that Steve would hate the fact that a Foley catheter was necessary. But the diuretics not only decreased the blood pressure but also increased the urination and it was important to monitor the work of the kidneys very closely.

A small display next to the heart monitor constantly showed Steve's blood pressure which was not measured by a traditional cuff around his bicep but rather by another IV catheter that was securely attached to the back of his left foot. Danny had learned earlier that the cannula had been inserted in an artery, which provided a more accurate reading of the patient's current blood pressure by directly measuring the arterial pressure. However this kind of invasive arterial monitoring required very close supervision, as there was a danger of severe bleeding if the line became disconnected.

But the strangest thing of all was the fact that the head of Steve's bed was raised to an angle of about thirty degrees. Patients in the ICU were normally lying flat on their backs but Steve's special clinical picture made it necessary to elevate his head in order to further relieve the intracranial pressure.

Danny was so engulfed in his thoughts, clearly visualizing his partner inside the small ICU cubicle that he didn't see nor hear that Chin had left Steve's room. Startling when the older man put a hand on his shoulder Williams whirled around and stared wide-eyed at his teammate. He needed a moment until he'd gathered his thoughts, then he mumbled sheepishly, "Hey Chin, didn't see you coming."

"It's alright," Chin answered quietly. "I didn't mean to scare you." He pointed over his left shoulder toward Steve's room and said, "You can go in now. Kono and I will be back tomorrow morning. If you need anything or if there's any change in Steve's condition, you call one of us, no matter the time, okay brah?"

"Okay," Danny nodded in agreement, anxious to finally get to his partner's side. "Thanks Chin. See you tomorrow."

* * *

Three hours of uneventful vigil and another CAT scan later, Dr. Pierson decided to cut back the sedation and let Steve slowly wake up, yet he wasn't entirely happy with this decision. The latest scan had revealed that the edema and the bleeding were slowly shrinking but it wasn't exactly at the rate he had been hoping for. The sedation and the low blood pressure had to be handled very delicately and despite the continuous monitoring Steve's body had begun to show more and more signs of stress, his vitals slowly reaching some dangerous limits.

"It will be at least another twenty or thirty minutes until he starts to wake up," Dr. Pierson explained as he gently closed off the IV line that was attached to Steve's right arm before he turned toward Danny who stood silently at Steve's other side, staring pensively down at his unconscious partner.

"Why don't you help yourself to another cup of coffee," the young doctor suggested softly, already having accepted that Danny wouldn't leave Steve's side. "I think you probably won't get very much sleep during the next few hours."

Keeping his eyes glued to his friend's pale face for another long moment, Williams finally raised his gaze to look at the other man and nodded slowly. "Okay," he agreed quietly and with a last squeeze to Steve's shoulder he turned around and left the room.

Outside in the corridor he leaned his back against the wall and breathed out a deep sigh. Tiredly sucking on his lower lip he just stared at the door to Steve's room for almost two minutes before he forcefully shook his head and slowly headed for the elevators that would bring him down to the cafeteria. Remembering Dr. Pierson's words Danny figured that not only a strong coffee would be in order but also a quick sandwich or something similar to fill his rumbling stomach.

Quickly texting Chin and Kono about the recent events, Danny tried to make the best out of his late lunch despite the strange circumstances and after the second cup of coffee he indeed felt better and more awake than before and ready to face whatever was ahead of him.

When he returned to the ICU barely twenty minutes later he found Dr. Pierson and an elderly nurse by his partner's side. Slightly frowning, the doctor looked at the ever-changing figures on the monitors while the nurse checked the bandage around Steve's left foot to make sure that the arterial needle still sat tightly in place.

"Is everything alright?" Danny asked hoarsely when he noticed the doctor's expression, not able to hide the concern he was feeling.

"Everything's fine," Dr. Pierson answered with a little smile as he nodded toward Steve's left hand. "I think he's starting to come around."

Danny's eyes followed the doctor's movement and he made a tentative step closer to the bed when he saw Steve's fingers restlessly twitching on the white sheets.

"You can talk to him, dear," the nurse said softly when she noticed Danny's hesitation. "Most of the patients find it easier to wake up when there's someone familiar around." Smiling motherly at him, she gently pushed him nearer to Steve's bed. "And a little bit of physical contact certainly won't do any harm."

Seeing Dr. Pierson's encouraging nod, Danny swallowed his reservation and awkwardly sat down on the bed, careful not to touch any of the tubes that were attached to his friend's body. He took a deep breath before he placed one hand on Steve's right bicep and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Steve?" he asked quietly, closely watching for any signs of awakening. "Steve? Can you hear me?"

Leaning a little bit forward he reached for Steve's left hand and took the faintly moving fingers in his own, furrowing his brow when he noticed the iciness of the skin. He released his grip around Steve's arm and wrapped both of his hands around Steve's larger one, hoping to give off a little bit of his own body heat.

"Steven?" Danny asked again as he took in his partner's appearance.

McGarrett was pale with dark smudges under his eyes, the area around the stitches on his left temple still swollen and discolored. His lips held a slight tinge of blue, as is the case with a child that spends too much time in a swimming pool, freezing from the long stay in the cold water despite the hot summer sun. From time to time a shiver ran through Steve's body, trying to preserve the precious body heat. The splinted right hand lay perfectly still on the white sheets but the fingers between Danny's hand twitched and curled, obviously reacting to Danny's voice.

"Why is he so cold?" Williams asked hoarsely over his shoulder without taking his eyes from his partner's face. "Can't you give him an additional blanket or turn on the heating or something?"

"It's a direct consequence of the low blood pressure," Dr. Pierson explained patiently. "And besides, the decreased body temperature also reduces the metabolic needs, which in turn is good for the intracranial pressure."

A faint moan from the bed cut Danny's reply short. Deep lines formed on Steve's forehead and Danny saw his Adam's apple bobbing when he tried to swallow.

"Steve?" Danny tried once more, moving one of his hands back to Steve's shoulder while the other one maintained its grip around Steve's left hand. "Come on, partner, it's time to wake up."

He started to grin when he felt the fingers curl around his own, weakly returning the encouraging squeeze. Steve's eyelids began to flutter and after a few more seconds McGarrett finally managed to open his eyes.

"Hey sleepyhead, good to see you," Danny said gently, looking into his partner's tired, dull eyes. "You with us?"

Blinking slowly, Steve licked his dry lips and nodded hesitantly. He laboriously cleared his throat, swallowed again and rasped weakly, "Hey Danno."

"How many times have I actually told you not to use that name, you goof?" Williams asked in faked annoyance. Noticing the hint of a smirk on Steve's face he good-naturedly rolled his eyes and tightened his grip on the other man's shoulder. "How do you feel?" he wanted to know, shifting his weight a little bit when he felt Dr. Pierson approaching the bed.

"Commander McGarrett?" the doctor asked calmly, also placing a hand on Steve's arm to get his attention. "Do you remember me?" Smiling contentedly when the injured man nodded his affirmation after brief consideration, he said slowly, "That's good. I only have a few short questions then I'll leave you alone, okay? Can you answer Detective Williams' question? Can you tell us how you feel?"

Furrowing his brow even more, Steve took a deep breath and weakly wiggled his fingers in Danny's grip. "Dizzy, cold, tired, headache," he whispered, not wasting any of his precious energy to form a complete sentence. Locking eyes with his doctor he heaved a tired sigh and added with as much emphasis as he could muster, "And I absolutely want to get rid of that Foley."

Danny's amused chuckle interrupted Dr. Pierson's answer and caused Steve to shift his gaze back to his partner. "Not funny," he exclaimed hoarsely, narrowing his eyes as he glared at the blond man.

"No, sorry babe, it's not," Danny said apologetically, but he was not able to hide the bright grin from his face. "Well, maybe just a little bit."

"I'm sorry, Commander," Dr. Pierson quickly chimed in when he saw the expression on Steve's face. "But I fear the catheter has to stay in place for a little longer. Now I have one other question for you… how's the headache on a scale from one to ten? Can you describe the pain a little more precisely?"

Swallowing once more, Steve tensed his muscles in an attempt to ride out the new shiver that ran through his body. "'S actually not that bad," he slightly slurred the answer to the doctor's question. His eyelids started to droop and Danny literally felt the amount of energy that Steve summoned to stay awake. "A three… maybe four… dull pressure… mainly behind left eye." His voice trailed off with a small sigh and he allowed his eyes to slowly close.

"Steven, for once just be honest, okay?" Danny scowled, knowing about his partner's passion to play things down. He gave Steve's shoulder a gentle shake and pleaded earnestly, "No sugarcoating things, do you hear me?"

Opening his eyes to mere slits, McGarrett shook his head ever so slightly. "Not lying… headache's really not bad," he said, shifting his gaze from Danny to his doctor. "Really, doc, I swear…"

"Okay," Dr. Pierson answered with a content nod of his head. "That's good to hear. Now try to get some more rest and the next time you're awake we can maybe talk about removing the Foley, okay?"

"Thanks," Steve said, sighing in relief when he closed his eyes again. After a few deep breaths he tightly curled his fingers around Danny's hand and whispered without bothering to look at his partner, "Danny… you don't need to stay."

Squeezing back, Danny studied Steve's face for a long moment before he answered gently, "I know, you moron… and now sleep."

**(tbc)**

* * *

See, I can be nice... no cliffhanger this time ;-)


	11. Chapter 11

Here comes the final chapter – thank you very much for sticking around until the end, for all your wonderful reviews and for all the favorites and alerts. Thank you, you are the best! :-) Enjoy the final chapter!

And once again a great, big thank-you to **JazzieG** for betaing my story despite the severe lack of Danny whump ;-)

* * *

**Chapter 11:**

The promising results of another CAT scan in the middle of the night had brought Dr. Pierson to also cut back the blood pressure medication a little bit. Steve's headache had retreated even more and despite the fact that he was still dizzy and shivering violently with cold he looked and felt much better than before.

After a few hours of restless sleep the latest scan in the early morning hours finally showed the results Dr. Pierson had been hoping for and thanks to that huge improvement the medication had been totally stopped and Steve had been transferred back to a private room even before breakfast.

After a long and heated discussion, the doctor had grudgingly agreed to also remove the Foley but only after he'd managed to screw the promise out of Steve that he would not try to get up without help. Grinning smugly after having won the argument, Steve leaned his head back onto the pillow, happy but nevertheless totally exhausted from that little dispute.

During the whole conversation Danny had remained seated in his chair at Steve's bedside, silently watching the two men in front of him. Now and then he'd almost intervened, feeling the strong need to support his injured friend but then he'd leaned back, folded his arms in front of his chest and simply enjoyed the show. Watching how Steve changed his tactic from asking nicely over to trying to order to finally pathetically pleading was actually pretty hilarious and almost as much fun as ranting himself.

Breakfast was served and the meal together with some more rest helped a lot to further improve Steve's condition surprisingly fast over the course of the morning. As was to be expected McGarrett grew more and more impatient and antsy with every passing minute he had to spend in that hated hospital bed.

It was already shortly after noon when Chin and Kono finally arrived at the hospital. Their visit had been originally planned for earlier that day but an urgent call from the Governor had postponed their schedule. Governor Denning had requested a detailed report about McGarrett's disappearance and the death of Claire Sacotte and so the two remaining members of Five-0 had spent their morning doing paperwork to satisfy their employer.

Walking along the corridor toward Steve's room, Chin and Kono looked at each other and started to grin broadly when they heard their two teammates, Steve's and Danny's voices easily penetrating the closed door. As usual they were arguing heatedly about something, fighting like the old married couple everyone thought they were.

Quietly opening the door, the cousins sneaked into the room, not the slightest bit surprised that neither Steve nor Danny noticed their entrance.

"Okay fine, go ahead, jackass," Danny just said, agitatedly waving his hands through the air, totally unaware of the two people behind his back. "Obviously that last hit to your head was finally hard enough to blow away the last of your brain cells. But if you insist, go ahead; I won't stand in your way." Putting his arms akimbo, Danny cocked his head a little bit to the right as he made a small step backwards. "Do you want me to call the nurse now or should I wait until you've performed a nice faceplant on your way to the bathroom?"

Now that Danny had stepped away, Chin and Kono had a clear view of their leader. Steve sat on the edge of the bed, obviously ready to stand up, his expression a mixture of amusement and anger as he listened to Danny's tirade. He was a little paler than usual and the wound on his left temple still looked pretty nasty. He cradled his broken wrist in his lap while he supported himself with the other hand on the mattress behind him.

"You're not going to believe this, Danny," he replied in exasperation, never taking his eyes from his partner. "But I'm perfectly capable to go the bathroom without help. I've done that for the last thirty years and I certainly don't need your help now."

"You're such a pighead, McGarrett," Williams said, shaking his head in frustration. "You know that they almost had to drill a hole in your skull, right, Steven?" Flicking his right hand in a dismissive gesture he added pensively, "Well, if I think about it, I'm sure that already happened to you because no one is as crazy as you are by birth."

"Hey brah, be nice to the boss, he's injured," Kono interrupted him, her grin broadening when her voice made the two men gape at her in surprise.

Steve was the first who recovered himself from the shock, flashing a smile at Kono before he turned back to his partner. "Yeah, be nice, Danno," he said cheekily.

"And you," Kono scowled at her boss as she punched him gently on the arm. "We were worried about you, so be a good guy and accept our concern and help."

Throwing Chin a quizzical look, Steve raised his eyebrows when the older man just shrugged his shoulders, knowing better than to mess with his cousin.

"And wipe the smirk off your faces – that goes for all three of you," Kono said sternly, letting her gaze travel over her three teammates.

Danny and Chin involuntarily moved closer to Steve's side, staring silently and a bit warily at the young woman. Inwardly grinning, Kono kept a straight face and waited until the three men started to fidget nervously in front of her. It was never easy to coax Steve to admit that he needed help but this time it seemed to be much easier than expected and Kono congratulated herself on her spontaneous idea.

She waited another few seconds before she locked eyes with her boss and asked quietly, "So, you need to go to the bathroom? Do you want me to call the nurse or are you going to allow Chin and Danny to help you?"

"No nurse," Steve croaked out after a short moment of contemplation, slightly intimidated by Kono's sudden aura of authority.

"Good choice, boss," Kono replied in a friendly tone, nodding her head in approval.

Steve gave her a wry smile before he laboriously stood up, allowing Danny and Chin to support him on his way to the bathroom. To be honest he highly appreciated their help, his legs felt like jelly and the dizziness he was still suffering from increased with every step he made – not that he ever admitted that.

"Bossy little girl," he heard Danny mumbling under his breath, and he couldn't suppress the grin that spread across his face.

"Sounds about right," Steve agreed in a loud whisper, grinning even broader when Kono raised her eyebrows and shot him a look out of glistening dark eyes.

Waiting until the three men had disappeared behind the bathroom door, Kono smiled as she dropped down in one of the chairs at Steve's bedside and thought about her teammates. Both, Steve and Danny, looked much better than the day before. Especially Danny who had been a shadow of his former self since Steve's disappearance and she was glad that all the sorrow of those last two days was obviously forgotten. She had seen this phenomenon before with the two men – when one of them was injured, experiencing any bodily harm, the other one seemed to suffer vicariously with him on a mental level.

When the three men returned almost ten minutes later, Steve was a lot paler than before, his legs trembling visibly and a cold sweat standing up on his brow. Chin and Danny managed, just barely, to tuck him back in and as soon as Steve's head touched the pillow he heaved a deep sigh of relief and closed his eyes.

"Do we actually bore you or are you going to pass out on us again?" Danny asked worriedly, closely eyeing his partner as he kept his hand on Steve's shoulder.

Briefly opening one eye, Steve glared tiredly at his friend. "Not passing out," he mumbled not very convincingly, pinching the bridge of his nose with trembling fingers. "Dizzy… just gimme a minute."

Steve inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply and with every breath he took the dizziness receded more and more. The doctor had told him that his blood pressure would still be a bit lower than normal for at least another day but now that he was back in bed he should soon feel better.

After a few minutes he finally took a particular deep breath and opened his eyes, not really surprised to be greeted by three equally worried faces. Steve smiled genuinely at his friends and said quietly, "I'm okay, really."

Furrowing his brow he suddenly remembered their conversation from the day before. "I'm still not sure what actually happened after I had been locked inside that damned box," he said, his voice a lot stronger than before.

"Are you sure you're up to that story, brah?" Chin asked, beating Danny to ask the very same question.

Nodding forcefully, Steve let his gaze travel over the three people around his bed. "I'm fine, the dizziness is almost gone," he said faithfully. "Trust me; I'm not eager to repeat yesterday's events." He locked eyes with Danny and repeated solemnly, "Really Danny, I'm fine."

Seeing the sincerity in his partner's eyes, Williams nodded slowly. Steve's complexion was no longer deathly pale and his fingers had stopped trembling a little while ago, so Danny was willing to believe that Steve really told the truth. "Okay buddy, what exactly do you want to know?" he asked with a little grin.

"How did you guys find me?" McGarrett asked immediately.

"I'm glad you asked," Danny replied as he animatedly waved his hands through the air, the grin on his face quickly changing into a beaming smile. "I don't want to boast, but finding you was truly an investigative masterpiece, a combination of skills and speculations, a display of great team effort, a rescue mission worthy of Hawaii's finest task force."

"I hate to bring you back down to earth, brah, but you know that we're Hawaii's only task force, right?" Chin chuckled about Danny's gush of words.

"And that means we're also the best," Williams retorted with undeniable logic and just like that he turned his attention back toward Steve. "Okay, listen, about that woman… You were right, her name was indeed Claire…"

"Was?" Steve asked curiously, narrowing his eyes when he noticed the slight change of mood in the room. "What happened?" he wanted to know as he raised his eyebrows, the strange emphasis that Danny had put on the word 'was' hadn't slipped his attention.

"She's dead," Kono said quietly only to be interrupted by Danny.

"Can we save that story for later?" he asked with a sharp movement of his hand. "Let's just talk about her supposed relationship to our fearless leader here." Briefly sucking on his lower lip, Danny kept silent for a moment before he addressed his partner, "The woman's name was Claire Sacotte, does that name ring a bell?"

"We think you probably might have known her son…" Chin said, but he wasn't able to finish his sentence because Steve sharply drew in a hissing breath, bolting upright in his bed.

"Roger," Steve exclaimed breathlessly. "Roger Sacotte, of course! That's why she looked so familiar." Sagging back into his pillows he squeezed his eyes shut when the sudden movement sent a new wave of dizziness through his head.

"Steve, you alright?" Danny asked worriedly, quickly placing a hand on Steve's shoulder.

"Yeah," Steve replied hoarsely. "That move was probably not the most clever one," he admitted sheepishly, breathing deeply in and out until the room stopped swirling around him.

"Roger Sacotte," he repeated quietly after a while as if that name would explain everything.

"So, you really knew him?" Danny asked, exchanging a quick glance with Chin and Kono. Their assumption obviously proved to be correct and now they were curious about the detailed circumstances of Roger Sacotte's death and Steve's share in it.

Slowly nodding, Steve opened his eyes as he started to explain, "Rogue… that was Roger's nickname… he was a SEAL like me. We served together… he died maybe nine, ten years ago…"

"Ten years to the day, the day you disappeared," Danny specified, remembering what they had found out about Claire Sacotte's son.

"Can you tell us what's happened to him?" Kono asked gently. "We tried to pull his file but it came up as classi…"

"Don't say it, please," Danny begged exasperatedly. "I really hate that damn word."

"His file is classified?" Steve asked in surprise, ignoring the groan from his partner and the annoyed roll of his eyes. "Really?"

"Yes it is," Danny replied angrily, waving his finger in front of Steve's face. "And you probably have to kill us if you tell us anything at all so why don't we just move on?"

"Actually I don't know why there should be any reason not to tell you about Roger's death," Steve said matter-of-factly, gleefully pushing away Danny's hand.

"Really?" Williams asked in complete bewilderment, staring at his partner with mouth agape.

"Yes," Steve answered, grinning at the dumbfounded expression on Danny's face. "That look suits you, Danno," he teased his partner. "Just make sure that you don't swallow a fly or something similar."

Snapping his mouth shut Danny narrowed his eyes as he said dryly, "Very funny Steven." Folding his arms in front of his chest he asked defiantly, "Are you going to tell the story now or was it just an idle threat?"

Keeping silent for a few more seconds just to irritate his friend, Steve finally began to talk, "You can probably imagine that Roger didn't earn his nickname by chance. We called him Rogue because he was always a bit reckless, he always pushed a little past his limits but never to the point where he endangered the others. But then one day during a training mission he obviously overestimated his skills…" Sighing wearily, McGarrett fiddled with the sheets as he continued his explanation, his gaze fixed to an invisible point at the opposite wall. "He and two other men died, five more including me, were injured," Steve said flatly, briefly closing his eyes before he looked at his friends. "I was in command that day, it was my team. I was responsible, I should have been able to prevent the events but I just didn't see it coming…" His voice trailed off as he tried to choke back the unwelcome emotions that came with those memories. Turning to the left he awkwardly reached for the glass of water on the bedstand and after a few small sips he had regained his composure. "I tried to talk to Rogue's mother but she refused to meet me. I never had the chance to explain what really happened."

Blinking rapidly, he heaved a deep sigh. Slowly placing the empty glass back on the bedstand, he let his gaze travel over his friends' faces, a sad little smile playing around his lips.

"Rogue's mother… Claire… she blamed me for his death, right?" Steve asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Noticing Steve's distress, Kono stepped closer to the bed and placed her hand once again on Steve's forearm, providing as much comfort as possible.

"Roger was Claire's only son, and as far as we could find out her only living relative," Chin said quietly. "His death must have hit her pretty hard, it's no wonder that she searched for someone she could blame for her loss."

"But you were not responsible for his death," Danny threw in, his face contorted with sympathy. "It was an accident, right? There was probably nothing you could have done."

"No, probably not," Steve admitted hesitantly after a moment of silence. "But that doesn't make it any easier." Locking eyes with his partner, Steve took another deep breath. "You said Claire is dead. What's happened? And how did you find out that she was involved in my disappearance?"

"Well, that's kind of a long story," Danny replied, briefly sucking on his lower lip. "And I think I need to reach back a little bit to make you understand yesterday's events."

"Okay Danno go on, talk," McGarrett interrupted him with the hint of a smile on his face. "You shouldn't have difficulty doing so."

Without responding to Steve's teasing, Williams started to explain, "Yesterday morning at about seven o'clock I got a text message from you, saying that you were going for a run and that you would be late."

Raising his hand when he noticed that Steve wanted to interrupt him, Danny continued quickly, "We later realized that you weren't the one who'd sent the message but at that time there was no reason to think that something was rotten in the state of Denmark."

"Okay," Steve said slowly, grimacing slightly as he shifted his weight a little bit to find a more comfortable position. He really hated being in a hospital and made a mental note to ask Dr. Pierson as soon as possible when he was allowed to go home.

"It was about nine o'clock when Claire suddenly showed up at the office," Danny went on.

"She came to the Palace?" McGarrett asked, staring at his partner in surprise.

Danny nodded a few times before he looked at Chin and Kono for support. "At that time I'd already tried to phone you but obviously you were unable to take the call."

"When Claire came into the office," Chin took over from his teammate, "she immediately started to hold us at gunpoint."

"Yeah, seems like she not only took you by surprise," Danny admitted grudgingly, referring to the fact that Claire had also been able to knock out a SEAL.

"And to crown it all, it was your weapon she wielded, boss," Kono added to the explanation.

"She had my weapon?" Steve asked confused, blinking slowly as he followed his friends' explanations.

"Not only your weapon but also your car key and your cell phone," Kono nodded.

Furrowing his brow in concentration, Steve tried to process what he'd just heard. "So, she was the one who sent you the message?" he asked only a moment later, turning his head to face his partner. "She sent you a message saying I'd be late so you wouldn't miss me instantaneously, right?"

"You're good, Steven," Danny replied, teasingly patting Steve's shoulder. "Perhaps one day you're gonna be a real cop after all, one must never give up hope."

"Well, I have the best teachers," Steve said unusually humbly, throwing his friends a genuine smile.

"That's probably right," Danny agreed with a broad grin.

"What happened then?" Steve asked curiously – the case became more and more complex the more he heard about it.

"You want to know what happened next?" Danny repeated Steve's question, staring at his partner with an unreadable expression. Stuffing his hands deep in his pockets, he explained quietly, "Claire pointed her weapon at us and mumbled some incoherent nonsense. She said something like 'I want him to suffer' and similar things and then…" he interrupted himself briefly, still shocked when he visualized the woman's unforeseeable action. "Then – before anyone of us was able to interfere – she pointed the weapon at her own head and killed herself."

The room was eerily silent after Danny's last words and Steve swallowed a few times, speechless with surprise and horror.

"She killed herself?" he asked hoarsely, that had really been the last thing he'd expected.

"We found your belongings in her backpack," Kono said, still clearly remembering the worry she'd felt at the moment she pulled Steve's iPhone out of Claire's bag. "That was when we realized that she was talking about you, boss."

There was another moment of silence only interrupted by the faint rustling of the sheets when Steve sat up a little straighter. "Okay," he said slowly after he had somewhat recovered from the shocking news he had just heard. "Let me quickly summarize… You just realized that I was missing after she killed herself? You had absolutely no idea of what happened or where I was?" Faintly shaking his head, McGarrett looked at his friends and asked quietly, "But then how on earth were you able to find me?"

"Pfff, piece of cake," Danny said with an impish grin, dismissively throwing his hand in the air as if he wanted to wave away a fly. "You remember that Claire had been in possession of your cell phone and that she had sent that little text message?" Waiting for Steve's affirmative nod, Williams continued sounding almost bored, "Well, a little computer magic by our rookie here, a little luck there and voilà, we found you in your little gift box." Throwing a look at Chin and Kono he added with a wink, "No problem for Hawaii's finest task force, right?"

"Oh, piece of cake? Really? If it was that easy, then why didn't you come a little bit earlier?" Steve asked in faked annoyance, giving his partner a challenging look.

"Earlier?" Danny repeated, still grinning broadly. Now that the whole ordeal had been overcome and Steve was clearly out of the woods, he was able to joke about everything that had happened during the last few days. "We thought you liked it there in your cozy little box."

"Yeah, it was indeed great," Steve replied, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement when he continued. "And you know what the best thing was, Danno? It was heavenly quiet in there, no partner who constantly complains about the sun, about pineapple on pizza, about my driving, about..."

He was interrupted by a short and firm knock and before any of the four people was able to answer, the door opened and a tall, red-haired man in a flight suit entered the room. "Sorry to interrupt," he said as he closed the door behind him. "But I promised to come by."

"Match," Danny exclaimed happily, beaming with joy as he greeted the man with a strong clasp of hands, deliberately ignoring the expression of utter surprise on Steve's face. "Good to see you."

"Hey Danny," Sergeant Julian Pepper answered with a little nod, shaking hands and slapping Danny on the shoulder as he grinned down at the smaller man. Then he quickly became serious and turning toward Steve he asked politely, "Commander, I heard you had a rough time yesterday, I hope you feel better today?"

"Uhm, yes, thank you," Steve answered hesitantly, clearly confused about the stranger in his room. "I'm sorry Sergeant, but have we met?" he asked after a glance at the insignia on Match's flight suit.

"He's one of the guys that saved your ass," Danny threw in before the other man could give an answer. "The least you could do is say thank you, you uncouth klutz."

"My name is Julian Pepper," Match added with a friendly smile at his former patient. "And there's no thanks necessary, Commander, I just did my job."

Staring at the two men, Steve furrowed his brow as he watched the cordial interaction between his partner and the Army medic. To say that he was surprised at Danny's behavior would be an understatement, his partner normally didn't think too highly of military people.

"What? What's that face?" Williams asked, interrupting Steve's train of thoughts, narrowing his eyes when he noticed Steve's countenance.

"I don't have a face," Steve replied automatically and slightly annoyed, defiantly locking eyes with his friend.

Taking a few steps away from Steve's bed, Chin quietly sat down and leaned back comfortably as he pointed at the empty chair next to him, motioning his cousin to also have a seat. A small grin played around his lips as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, watching the familiar banter between his teammates.

"This is going to be fun," Kono whispered cheerfully as she plopped down at his side. "Do you think we need popcorn?"

"Psst," Chin ordered, nodding his head toward Danny who had stepped a little closer to Steve's bed, silently measuring his partner from head to toe.

"Are you pissed that my new best Army buddy had to save your Navy butt?" Danny finally asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"New best Army buddy?" McGarrett repeated as he sat up straighter in his bed, mirroring Danny's movements when he also shook his head. His gaze briefly flickered toward Julian Pepper who watched the verbal exchange with open amusement as he slowly closed the distance between himself and the rest of the audience. "Nothing against you, Sergeant, but… I was just wondering, Danny… since when are you best buddy with an Army soldier?"

"Oh that's what it's all about," Danny exclaimed, his hands flying through the air and his eyebrows shooting up when he finally deciphered the look on Steve's face. "Are you jealous? You are jealous, right?"

"Did I say that? I didn't say that," Steve retorted, trying to cross his arms in front of his chest, but with his splinted right wrist and the IV cannula still attached to his left arm the gesture was not very comfortable and he irritably dropped his hands back onto the sheets.

"Then what?" Watching his partner closely, Danny snorted when Steve fidgeted around in his bed, intentionally avoiding Danny's gaze. "What the hell is the matter with you, Steven?"

Shaking his head in amusement, Match bent down toward Chin and whispered, "How long have these two actually been married?" Grinning, he shared a knowing look with the cousins.

"Too long, brah, too long," Chin chuckled.

"They always fight like an old couple," Kono nodded in agreement.

Audibly clearing his throat, Match straightened himself and stepped closer to the bed. "I don't want to interrupt your little marital quarrel," he said still grinning broadly, "but I have to go."

Without giving the two men time to react, he nodded toward Steve, "Commander, all the best for you. It was good to see you awake and on the road to recovery."

"Uhm, thank you, Sergeant," Steve answered somewhat perplexed about the sudden interruption.

Turning toward the smaller man, Match gave Danny another slap on the shoulder. "Danny, take care," he said, making a small pause before he added with a conspiratorial wink. "And always remember what I told you about Navy SEALs."

"I will," Danny answered with a laugh, "thanks, Match."

Waving a short goodbye at Chin and Kono, the red-haired medic swiftly left the room and closed the door behind him.

"And another one who thinks we're married," Danny puffed out after a moment of awkward silence, flailing his arms in a defeated gesture. "Great."

"Oh, are you worried what your new Army friend thinks of you?" Steve asked snappishly, waiting until Danny met his gaze before he continued with a smirk. "And what about his name? Sergeant Pepper? Seriously? Why didn't he bring his Lonely Hearts Club Band?"

"Very witty McGarrett, really," Danny said, rolling his eyes in annoyance, but keeping the fact to himself that he'd cracked the exact same joke only two days ago, hoping desperately that Chin and Kono didn't betray him. "Do you think this is funny?"

"Actually yes, I do," McGarrett chuckled, obviously clearly enjoying himself.

"How twisted is that brain of yours actually?" Danny wanted to know, but he couldn't totally prevent that his lips also curled in amusement. "But you know what, Steven?" he added after a moment of silence, pensively staring at his friend. "That name, Sergeant Pepper… it reminds me that you promised to tell us about 'Operation Strawberry Fields'."

Raising his eyebrows, Steve answered promptly, "I'm pretty sure I never promised such a thing, Danno."

"Oh, come on," Danny said, his right hand drawing small circles in the air. "You already told us about Roger's death and that file was also supposed to be classified."

"Wow, Danny, you said the word," Kono threw in, winking at Danny in amazement. "That wasn't too difficult, was it?"

"Sssh, rookie, be quiet," Williams whispered, emphasizing his words by putting his index finger in front of his lips. Winking back at her, he added cheerfully, "Sit back and learn, young one. I almost made him talk." Turning back toward his partner, Danny asked simply, "Steve? 'Operation Strawberry Fields'?"

Looking silently at Danny for almost a minute, Steve finally heaved a deep sigh and nodded slowly. "Alright," he said hoarsely. "But listen very closely, because I'm gonna tell this story exactly once."

An uncomfortable screeching sound suddenly filled the air when Chin and Kono simultaneously jumped from their chairs and hurried to Steve's bed. Their boss telling military stories was something one didn't get to see every day.

"You really want to know about 'Operation Strawberry Fields'?" Steve asked in a conspiratorial whisper, briefly smiling when he saw his three teammates nodding eagerly. "Okay, you won't believe it but 'Operation Strawberry Fields' was the one mission where I had to lead my SEAL team to New Jersey. We had the order to infiltrate the entire pizza industry and to put at least one piece of delicious Hawaiian pineapple on every slice of pizza we could find."

Trying to keep a straight face while Chin and Kono burst into laughter, Steve looked expectantly at his partner, but Danny just stood there, pensively shaking his head. "Well, seems like you haven't been very successful," he stated smugly as he returned Steve's gaze. "Because I can tell you that I've never seen a single piece of pizza that had some pineapple on it."

"I've never said how big the pieces of pineapple had been," Steve retorted, briefly exchanging a look with Chin and Kono before he returned his attention to Danny. "Maybe they had been so small you weren't able to see them. I'm sure you have already eaten thousands of them, Danny."

"Yuck," Williams exclaimed loudly, making such a disgusted face that his three teammates almost doubled over with laughter. "That's really gross! The thought alone is making me sick. Thanks to you I'll probably never be able to eat pizza without thinking of your terrible story."

"It's your own fault, Danny," Steve replied matter-of-factly, indifferently shrugging his shoulders as he started to chuckle. "You asked, now you have to live with the consequences."

"Just wait and see, Steven, because my revenge will be terrible," Danny said, pointing his finger at Steve's chest. Suddenly a thought crossed his mind and a bright smile colored his features. "I actually think my revenge might already be set up."

"What are you talking about?" Steve asked suspiciously, immediately sobering when he saw the mischievous expression on Danny's face. "What is he talking about?" he almost whined, turning toward Chin and Kono for an answer.

"Well, babe, we might or might not have established a new rule in the office concerning punctuality," Danny explained vaguely, gleefully waving his hand through the air in front of Steve's face.

"Oh dear, you might be in serious trouble, boss," Kono smirked, remembering the huge pile of documents on McGarrett's desk.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Steve repeated, even more anxious now that Kono was also grinning broadly. "What new rule?" His gaze darted from Danny to Kono and then to Chin, the only one who was not laughing yet.

"For every ten minutes one of us is late, he – or she – has to take over some of the others' paperwork," Chin explained calmly, taking pity on Steve.

"And you're definitely late, boss," Kono chuckled sympathetically.

"Yes, Steven, you're definitely late," Danny nodded gloatingly. "And we're talking here about what? 48 hours?"

"And counting," Chin commented dryly. "That means there's a lot of paperwork waiting for you, brah."

Staring wide-eyed at the three grinning people around his bed, Steve slowly shook his head. "You're kidding, right?" he croaked out, there was nothing else he actually hated more than doing paperwork.

"Sorry babe, no kidding here," Danny laughed out loud, slapping his hand on Steve's shoulder. The expression of utter panic on his partner's face was too hilarious to stay serious. Feeling Steve fidgeting under his touch, he furrowed his brow when he noticed that Steve was desperately reaching for the call button. "Hey, you alright? What's wrong?"

"I need to get out of here immediately," Steve replied hectically. "No way you're dumping even more paperwork on my desk."

"Hey, relax partner," Danny said, keeping his hand on Steve's shoulder to prevent him from actually pressing the button. "Right now you're on sick leave; the rule only applies for regular working hours."

"Seriously?" McGarrett made sure, reluctantly leaning back onto the pillow. "You know how much I hate paperwork; you almost gave me a heart attack, Danny."

"Only for regular working hours," Danny repeated, exchanging an amused look with Chin and Kono.

"Yeah boss, that means no additional paperwork for you," Kono affirmed, barely stifling another bout of laughter.

"No additional paperwork," Chin chimed in, and the bright smile on his face made Steve's stomach knot in presentiment. "Except for the few files that already landed on your desk **before** you were on sick leave."

"Don't worry, Steven, I'm sure you'll be able to finish the files before you retire," Danny nodded good-humoredly before he looked once more at Chin and Kono and all three people burst into laughter.

"Very funny, really guys," Steve huffed out, but after a few moments he wasn't able to remain serious any longer, the laughter of his friends was just too contagious.

Joining in with the general cheerfulness he laughed with his friends, unconsciously thinking about a plan for how he possibly could get rid of the hated paperwork. Maybe a real good puppy-eyed look would convince Kono to take over some of the work. Most of the time that special look brought him nothing but a hearty laugh and an amused, "Really boss, is that your best try?" but sometimes – very rarely – it miraculously worked and Kono actually did what he intended her to do.

And if the puppy-eyed look wasn't successful there was always the possibility to get Danny on board. If Steve acted stupid on purpose, usually Danny got impatient enough to voluntarily take over the work.

_Yes, that plan would work_, McGarrett thought smugly.

The ringing laughter of the four teammates and friends reverberated through the room; everyone was happy that Steve was alive and supposed to make a full recovery. They all laughed until they had serious trouble catching their breath but Steve had to admit that it was much better to be breathless from laughter than to have trouble breathing because of being locked in an airtight box. That was definitely something he didn't want to experience ever again.

**THE END**


End file.
